


Right Hand

by cyranonic



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Fodlan typical sexism, Infidelity, M/M, Major Illness, Mental Health Issues, Minor Sylvain Jose Gautier/Mercedes von Martritz, Miscarriage, Permanent Injury, Pining, Post-Canon, a lot of emotions about medieval politics, compulsory heterosexuality of the crest system, original character who is the queen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-12
Updated: 2020-11-12
Packaged: 2021-03-10 01:07:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 21,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27525853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyranonic/pseuds/cyranonic
Summary: And Felix is right that Dimitri has a duty to find a queen, produce an heir, even though he wishes to let the foolish business of Crests and lineages stay buried with the other casualties of war.So Dimitri squares his shoulders. Let him be next to marry, then.---The business of ruling is a heartless one. And Dimitri has always been known to put his duty above his heart.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Felix Hugo Fraldarius
Comments: 43
Kudos: 148





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "it is said that Felix's grief was more potent even than the queen's."

No one had really expected Sylvain to be the first of them to marry. On some level, it made sense. He had always been the most interested in courtship and romance. But if Dimitri had been asked to guess, he would have probably assumed that Sylvain would marry under threat with some furious father’s sword at his back. 

Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that no one had really expected Sylvain to marry Mercedes von Matritz.

It is a late summer wedding at the Gautier estate. It feels odd to Dimitri not to be working. He has only ruled Faerghus, and now the rest of Fódlan, for three years. To spend an evening dancing in the grass and sipping clover honey mead seems immeasurably selfish. Dimitri dutifully observes the party for an hour before he sets down his glass and begins to calculate a trajectory through the gardens to get back to his chambers without anyone noticing. 

“Slipping away?” 

The familiar voice of Felix catches him as he gazes back to the Gautier house

“I am poor company at such events,” Dimitri says as Felix steps into view. Sylvain and Mercedes are still dancing on the lawn with the other guests. Annette has returned all the way from the Officers Academy and Dedue has made the journey back from his work in Duscur. Dimitri spots the professor observing the crowd at a distance, like he is, although she never seems lonely when she watches from the sidelines. 

“Have a drink with me,” Felix offers, breaking Dimitri away from his meditations. Dimitri relents. 

Having Felix at his side is the strangest consequence of the war. Three years ago, when they limped back from Enbarr victorious, and yet without much joy, Dimitri had been prepared for Felix to leave. He had never made his disdain for court and Faerghan nobility much of a secret. Or his disdain for Dimitri. 

But Felix had stayed. Felix had stayed and grown into his role as Duke Fraldarius, Shield of Faerghus, most valued advisor and right hand to the king. He is still a bit too combative to make a perfect courtier. Occasionally, they fall into old habits and fight. Felix thinks Dimitri too soft on those who deserve a harder justice. Dimitri finds Felix too dismissive of any idea he didn’t come up with himself. 

But Dimitri is also glad that he stayed. A part of him is so glad that it frightens him. It frightens him that he doesn’t understand why he desperately wants Felix to stay. 

In the garden of the Gautier estate, Felix hands him a glass of wine, something far too fine for his lips, imported from the south. 

“You recall that I cannot taste it,” Dimitri says apologetically before he drinks. “Any subtlety of its flavor is wasted on me.” 

“It tastes like rotten fruit and vinegar,” Felix replies, narrowing his eyes. “Just drink it and stop complaining.” 

Distant music floats up to the gardens where they stand. The viols and drums are nearly drowned out with the chirping of crickets and fireflies have begun to flicker in the grass. 

“They make a lovely couple,” Dimitri offers neutrally after a few moments of silence. It is a platitude, but he means it. Sylvain looked unlike himself when he pressed his forehead to Mercedes’ and kissed her at the ceremony. Dimitri had never realized how much of Sylvain’s usual bravado was nothing but performance. 

“If an unexpected pair,” Felix adds. He stares down at his glass. 

Felix wears dark blue, his cloak clasped with silver. He has grown his hair longer since the war, although he still wears it tied back. Felix has always been handsome, if a bit too prickly for much courtship, and Dimitri suddenly wonders if next year he will be hesitating on the perimeter of Felix’s wedding. 

“Shall we place our bets on who will be next?” Dimitri asks. He does not know how to ask Felix if he has found someone he plans to marry. Dimitri is not blind to the way Annette brings a smile to even his most dour advisor’s face. But they are not yet so close to discuss such matters. However Dimitri says it, the question will offend him. 

“Ingrid and Ashe,” Felix says unexpectedly, pointing to the two of them standing guard over the table of refreshments. Both wear the regalia of House Blaiddyd now, a matching pair of knights excitedly comparing the variety of the banquet. 

“Really?” Dimitri asks. “I know they share much in common, but a marriage…?” 

“Either them or yourself,” Felix says with a shrug. 

“I have no intent to--” Dimitri begins. Felix cuts him off with a scoffing sound. 

“Save it,” he says, his voice suddenly more brutal. He sounds like he did at the academy, before this tenuous peace existed between them. “No more of your self-lacerating nonsense about being undeserving.” 

Dimitri feels, as he often does around Felix, simultaneously wounded and deeply honored. 

“Of course, of course, but…” Dimitri searches for words that will not upset Felix further. While he hides it well, Dimitri is too well-trained in observing Felix to miss the way his face has tightened and his shoulders have drawn up. “I am not sure that I am the sort to marry. My father married for love. Sylvain and Mercedes as well.” 

He is uncertain how to tell Felix that he does not know if he is capable of feeling that sort of love. How does a man admit that he has always been too cold, too miserable, too plagued by whispers and nightmares, too certain of his own impending death, to have considered the question? 

“You’re a…” Felix growls in frustration and pinches the bridge of his nose. “By the goddess, Dimitri, you’re a match most women would dream of making. While you might be an irritating mess half of the time, you are… a good man.” 

For some reason, Dimitri feels his heart leap. He sets down the wine on a stone ledge, concerned it is going to his head. 

“Felix, I--” he starts to say, but Felix continues. 

“Look, I’m not good at this. But as your advisor, I can’t stand to see you so pathetic. You need a queen. You need an heir. If you want your lords to stop parading their daughters out at every ball and postponing other matches, you need to take a wife,” Felix snaps. “For the good of everyone, just go ask her to dance.” 

For a moment, Dimitri just stares at Felix, unable to comprehend what he is asking. Then Dimitri follows his eyes to the solitary shape of the professor, watching the party stoically, like she’s been assigned to guard it rather than invited as a guest. 

“No, I couldn’t,” Dimitri sputters, feeling his face going scarlet. Maybe he really has had too much of the wine. 

“It wasn’t like you kept your little infatuation that secret,” Felix says harshly. It is clearly difficult for him to say this, Dimitri realizes, although in his own way, Dimitri suspects that Felix is attempting to be kind. “What do you have to hide from her? She isn’t going to turn you down if you ask. Be direct. Stop cowering.” 

Felix knocks the rest of his drink back in a single swallow. Dimitri feels tongue-tied. There is so much he wants to say, but he cannot say it to Felix. Most of it he cannot say to anyone. 

Because Felix is right that at the Officers Academy, Dimitri did feel a sort of fumbling desire for the professor. She was beautiful and strong and she understood some part of the weight he carried. 

But how can he tell Felix that his infatuation has… changed? He is terrified that this is just yet another unfixable broken part of himself. Like the voices that have never gone away, like the headaches and the sleepless nights he cannot quite shake, like the eye that is nothing but a pit of scar tissue now. It is terrifying to admit that he may have ruined the part of himself that was capable of being in love. 

“Thank you for the advice,” Dimitri says instead. “We ought to rejoin the festivity, then, I suppose. We’ve been unsociable for too long and the happy couple will expect us.” 

“Hmm,” Felix hums noncommittally. “I don’t mind being unsociable. And I don’t think they’ve noticed.” 

Dimitri looks towards Sylvain and Mercedes, breathless and laughing after hours of dancing. Felix is correct. Dimitri spares another glance towards the distant silhouette of the professor. 

Felix has commanded him to be direct and fearless. It is not so easy for him as it is for Felix. Dimitri has never known Felix to conceal anything, he is blunt even to a fault, he would never shrink back and hide.

And Felix is right that Dimitri has a duty to find a queen, produce an heir, even though he wishes to let the foolish business of Crests and lineages stay buried with the other casualties of war. 

So Dimitri squares his shoulders. Let him be next to marry, then. 

\---

Her name is Gisela von Sigvyn. 

Her family is minor nobility from the border of what was once the Adrestian Empire. Her house bears no Crest, but neither did they send soldiers to the emperor’s army during the war, which will exempt her from the worst of Faerghan scorn. She will placate the former Adrestian territories and she will pacify the skeptical lords of the western kingdom. She will satisfy the traditionalists who insist he take a wife of high birth and impress the radicals who want to see the king depart from the tired custom of marrying the daughter of the most powerful lord he needs to sway. 

She is four years older than him. She has dark red hair in her portrait. He has been told she is tall. 

And Dimitri is panicking. 

The night before his bride arrives in Fhirdiad, Dimitri is sitting in his study, writing letters to keep himself from pacing and wandering the dark halls of the palace. Felix slams through his door without so much as a knock. 

“Still up,” Felix says with a scowl. “Are you hoping to look pale and sickly tomorrow?” 

“I do not think I will sleep, regardless,” Dimitri admits, carefully laying his pen down to avoid smearing the ink. 

“You’re such a fool,” Felix snarls. “You’re walking into another disaster I will have to clean up.” 

“I am trying,” Dimitri says weakly. Felix can always see through him. Felix knows that Dimitri will ruin this marriage like he has destroyed so many other things. “I am following your advice as best I can, I swear.” 

“How is it my advice?” Felix’s voice is rising. “To marry some power-hungry girl you’ve never met? Just tell them she is too thin or too gap-toothed and we can still salvage this.” 

“You said I should marry,” Dimitri blinks in confusion. His mind is running slowly. The constant gnawing dread has made his thoughts vague and hard to hold on to. “I am trying to bring stability to the west, to produce an heir, to keep the nobles of Faerghus from fighting over my favor.” 

“I said you should ask the professor to dance!” Felix shouts back. Dimitri does not understand why he is shouting. “She is the archbishop, you idiot, no one in the Kingdom would dare object!” 

“I did not… want to,” Dimitri whispers. He feels so small, like a stupid guilty child. Even though his body is absurdly large, scarred, frightening, Felix has the unique ability to render him a vile little insect with only a few words. 

“You’re a fool, damn you, Dimitri, you’re a fool,” Felix says, each word sharp enough to draw blood. “Send her back tomorrow. Fix this while you still can. Don’t doom yourself to this life because you want the world to keep punishing you.” 

“I can handle it,” Dimitri protests. “I know you have every right to doubt me, but I  _ can _ do this. I want a peaceful kingdom, Felix. You were the one who told me to stop cowering. If you were in my position, I know you would do the same.”

Felix looks stricken. Dimitri has said something wrong again. Perhaps it is the comparison. Felix recoils at being compared to the boar king. 

“You have no idea what I would do,” Felix finally says bitterly. “In your position.” 

And then he stalks out of the room without another word. 

The next morning, Dedue comes to his chambers before Dimitri must be ready to go down and meet his future wife at her carriage. Dedue has been splitting his time between Fhirdiad and Duscur, working tirelessly to try to restore the devastated lands. 

Dimitri has granted Duscur its sovereignty, but that is merely a first step. The native people of Duscur still hate him, still do not trust Dedue, still resent the many Faerghan families who live in Duscur after House Kleiman granted them lands seized from the locals. It means that Dimitri has been without Dedue for many months. He does not want to burden Dedue further, but he misses him. 

“This one,” Dedue says, gesturing to one of many coats laid out for Dimitri that morning. While Dimitri insists on dressing himself, he cannot escape the fact that he has no eye for fashion. Dedue is gesturing to a garment in blue and white that Dimitri fears will only make him look paler and sicklier. 

“My hair,” Dimitri says with a sigh. “I should have had it cut. It looks a mess.” 

“Allow me,” Dedue replies, easily combing it back out of his eyes and into some semblance of a kingly style. Dimitri relaxes slightly. He feels guilty that Dedue still sometimes acts like just another servant, but this is… nice. 

“Dedue, I--” he begins and then clears his throat. “Forgive me if I overstep, but I would like to hear your thoughts.” 

“Of course,” Dedue nods. 

“Have you ever wished to marry?” Dimitri asks. Dedue has always been so silent on the topic of his own desires. Dimitri has often worried that serving as his vassal has held Dedue back from living his own life. 

“I have,” Dedue says, surprising him. “But right now, I am occupied with other matters.” 

“I see,” Dimitri replies quietly, fiddling with a clasp on his cloak so he does not have to look up. “If I have been overworking you, Dedue, you know you need only ask.” 

“That is not what I mean,” Dedue says, ever patient and calm, “My work in Duscur is what I choose to devote myself to now. You have given me purpose when I might not have had any hope for my future. But in that future, yes, I do hope for marriage. To show someone the flowers of Duscur, to make a home there, that is what I wish for once my work is done.” 

“Who?” Dimitri asks, and then shakes his head. “My apologies, that is not an order. Your private life is your own.”

“I have no person in mind,” Dedue clarifies. “Dimitri, some things take time to grow. But if you tend them well, any flower can bloom and flourish. You have a kind heart. Even if you do not yet love the woman you marry, I am certain that you will eventually.”

Dimitri casts a look in the mirror, thinking of Felix’s words the previous night. Dedue thinks him capable, but Felix doubts. Felix has always been right to doubt in the past. 

Gisela von Sigvyn steps out from her carriage that afternoon and is presented before him. She looks very like her portrait, although he catches a glimpse of her teeth when she talks and sees that they are a bit large and gapped at the front. She is tall, but so is he and it makes it easier that he does not have to bend so far down to kiss her hand. 

“Your majesty,” she says by way of greeting. “It is a pleasure to finally meet you.” 

“Thank you, Lady Gisela,” he replies. “I hope you will like it here in Fhirdiad.” 

He means it. Fhirdiad can be cold and the gossip can be viscous and the city can be at once too crowded and too provincial. Fhirdiad is not so enchanting as Derdriu, so grand as Enbarr, so rich with history as Garreg Mach. It is a barbaric northern town full of grim people used to struggle. If she can like Fhirdiad, perhaps she can grow to like its king. 

Gisela’s brown eyes sweep over the palace behind him. She looks nervous, but not unhappy. He feels the same. 

Felix is not there. Dimitri wishes that Felix was there. 

\---

At the wedding feast, Dimitri’s friends come to offer formal congratulations one by one. Most of his former comrades choose their words carefully, probably aware that Dimitri has known the woman who is now his wife for only a week. Sylvain and Mercedes wish them every happiness. Ingrid and Ashe come to pledge their loyalty to the new queen. Annette kindly offers to show Gisela around the city while she is still in town. 

Dimitri spots Felix only briefly, looking bored, talking grimly to Shamir who arrived with the other Knights of Seiros in the archbishop’s retinue. 

Byleth is seated at the high table with him, of course. She is quiet, but she has always been laconic. Dimitri watches her as he attempts to stay engaged in the conversation around him. When Gisela is pulled away into a discussion with her father, Byleth finally looks at him. 

“Prof- sorry, Archbishop,” Dimitri greets her. “I am grateful that you came.” 

“Of course,” Byleth says, her oddly flat voice never betraying her thoughts. “There is no better time to revisit my students than at their weddings. I expect you’ll be receiving invitations from Annette before the year is out.” 

“Annette?” Dimitri’s eyes widen. Perhaps this is why Felix looks so bored with this party. He is anticipating his own nuptials. “She has spent so much time at the Officers Academy, I had not realized…” 

“Affections can develop even between professors,” Byleth says with a hint of humor. “They are only human, after all. Provided her fiancé doesn’t sleep through the ceremony, I think you’ll find their affection very endearing.” 

“Oh,” Dimitri says, stunned into forgetting everything he meant to say.

So Annette intends to marry another professor. Not Felix. 

“It is rewarding to see her happy,” Byleth says carefully. “After Gilbert.” 

Dimitri squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. Gustave, or Gilbert, died in the throne room, attempting to block the stairs from reinforcements. He lies buried at Garreg Mach with Rodrigue and so many others. 

“Be careful, Dimitri,” Byleth says after a pause. She seems to be able to read his mind sometimes, or see his future. “To be in our position is often lonely. I have kept my distance, not out of cruelty, but out of necessity. Power and love can be a dangerous combination.” 

“I swear to you, I will do what is right,” Dimitri says. “I will honor this marriage.” 

“You will,” Byleth nods. “And yet, be careful. I have been fortunate enough to find my own exception, but some harms cannot be avoided. Get some air on the terrace before you dance; it will improve your footwork.” 

She stands after that, turning towards a few approaching clerics. 

“Professor,” Dimitri says before she goes, forgetting her new title. “What is the exception?” 

“Love only the Goddess,” Byleth says with a sly smile before she leaves. 

Gisela turns to him after she has finished her quiet conversation with her father. 

“Your Majesty,” she says, very proper and demure, “shall we begin the dances in a moment?” 

“Yes,” Dimitri says, then glances around, “allow me a moment to compose myself.” 

He rises and sees eyes follow him as he steps off of the dais. He feels very warm suddenly. Perhaps he ought to step onto the terrace as the professor said. 

He slips through the glass doors, hoping no one will notice if he is gone for a moment. The air outside is crisp early spring. While he can clearly hear the sound of the party inside, the gardens are quiet. Perhaps after the dancing begins, the servants will light lamps and his courtiers will find secret nooks to hide in with their beloveds. 

But as Dimitri turns to go back inside, he hears something. 

Faintly, he hears the sound of pained breathing. Someone is panting for air, unevenly gasping like a man in agony. 

Dimitri peers into the darkness, sees a shadow barely visible, a figure standing with its back to a tree. In the dim moonlight, he makes out a bit of a profile, a sweep of dark hair. It is Felix. 

It is Felix outside of his wedding banquet alone, breathing heavily like someone has stabbed him. Dimitri feels a rush like he’s in battle. He is paralyzed. 

He ought not to be here. This is a private thing not meant for him to see. He should forget it. 

Perhaps Felix has heard that Annette is engaged to be married or perhaps it is something else. He should not speculate. 

Dimitri pushes the door open and slips back inside. Gisela is waiting for him at the high table. He takes her hand and the music shifts to a waltz as he leads her out to the floor. 

They dance well together. She is tall and statuesque. He has little natural grace, but years of fencing footwork have at least made him a competent dancer. She gives him a hesitant smile as the song comes to a close, her lips closed. Perhaps she has been taught to smile like that, Dimitri thinks, on account of her teeth. 

The party continues long after he leaves it, but he has his duty to attend to. Dimitri has virulently rejected the custom of a bedding ceremony, but he cannot avoid the fact that he must at least visit his wife’s room that night. 

His servants lead them to her chamber, a maid helping her to undress from her tightly laced bodice. Then it is just the two of them, finally alone. Dimitri awkwardly takes a seat in the chair before her vanity while she quietly slides into her bed. 

“Well,” Dimitri finally says after a moment. “I hope you enjoyed the evening. I expect it was tiring.” 

“Thank you, your majesty, it was a beautiful feast,” Gisela says, perfectly poised. “I am well and refreshed, I assure you.” 

Dimitri nods and then drums his fingers on the arm of the chair. He clears his throat a few times. 

“My lady,” he finally begins and his voice sounds loud and rushed. He winces and softens it. “I know that we are still… strangers to one another. I want you to know that while I find your beauty without fault, I have no intention of forcing you to do anything that you do not wish to. I can retire to my chambers once you deem it respectable.”

Gisela looks at him. He cannot read her. Her dark red hair is loose around her shoulders now and she is wearing only her slip. 

“You are very gracious, Your Majesty,” she says. “But I assure you, I am prepared to consummate our marriage. You need not restrain yourself.” 

“No, I am sorry, I have not been clear,” Dimitri fumbles for the words. “I know that you do not love me yet. While I believe you are a woman of upstanding character and strength, I will not ask you to put duty above your feelings.” 

“Perhaps Your Majesty does not realize,” Gisela smiles with her lips closed again. “You are a handsome man. I did not accept your offer of marriage purely out of duty to my house.”

This shakes Dimitri. He fails to speak for another moment. His hand tightens on the arm of the chair and he has to force himself to let go before he breaks it. 

“Sir,” Gisela finally speaks again. “I hope I have not offended you.” 

“Not at all,” Dimitri says. He finds that his heart is suddenly beating very fast. “I think… I think what I mean to say that I have not said is… is that I am not prepared for this. I would like to be more… acquainted with you… first.” 

He gets the words out like he is speaking with a hand at his throat. Gisela looks at him, her brows faintly drawn in concern. Finally, she nods.

“I understand, Your Majesty,” she says. “I will not protest. But I do… I do wish for a child. For a woman in my position to remain childless, your majesty, it can be very difficult.” 

“Of course, yes, of course,” Dimitri rushes to agree. “I hope we will conceive one soon. But not yet. Not tonight. I need time.” 

Gisela nods and then hesitantly pats the bed beside her. 

“Perhaps then, we can have a conversation this evening?” she invites him. 

When he agrees, her lips widen to show her teeth. He finds he likes her smile very much. 

\---

In the first month of their marriage, Dimitri learns a great deal about Gisela von Sigvyn, now Blaiddyd. She is reserved and well-mannered. She likes to sketch portraits and she is quite skilled at capturing faces. She is well-read but prefers poetry to heroic tales and romances. She had a sister a few years older than her who died of an illness when they were young. 

There is also a great deal about her that remains a mystery. It is difficult to tell if she is happy. She is not naturally expressive, which seems to suit her well as a queen. Most of the courtiers like her well enough, but she inspires no great devotion. She seems to have few friends. 

“Would Ingrid be offended if I asked her to take my wife riding?” Dimitri asks Felix one day as they are concluding some preparation for the Albinean ambassador’s visit. 

Felix shakes his head. He has not mentioned Gisela unless he absolutely must since the wedding. Dimitri suspects he is still angry about the match. Felix thinks him a coward and an opportunist. 

“Can she not ride?” Felix asks scornfully. 

“She can,” Dimitri says carefully. “But I worry she is lonely here. I would like her to make friends.” 

“Then figure it out on your own,” Felix says stiffly. “I can advise you on matters of state, not on your wife’s friends.” 

Dimitri feels his hackles rise at the tone, then his ferocity morphs into shame. A voice whispers from behind his left shoulder that there is so much suffering in the world and he has only ever added to it. He rubs his forehead over his missing eye with the palm of one hand. 

“What is it?” Felix asks. 

“Just a headache, I am fine,” Dimitri murmurs, trying to focus on Felix’s voice as the whisper morphs into a groan, into a scream.

“Dimitri,” Felix barks out, looking alarmed. “I-- I should not have spoken so sharply.” 

“You are right, though, I am sorry,” Dimitri says, continuing to rub circles over his eye. “I ask too much from you. I have always asked too much.” 

“Stop it,” Felix says harshly. 

Dimitri falls silent. Felix is looking at him with fear in his eyes. Because he is a frightening man. Even to his friends, even to Felix who is fearless, he is disturbing. 

“Do you remember that summer when Glenn taught us to swim?” Felix says suddenly. Dimitri is so perplexed, he forgets about the voice. Felix does not reminisce, as a rule. He considers such things a personal weakness. “It was at the seashore in Fraldarius territory. We were twelve and you wanted to swim out to that island and I wanted to follow you.” 

“I recall that Glenn had to come save us both,” Dimitri offers hesitantly. “We were always a bit… overambitious together. You should not have tried to follow me on such a dangerous endeavor.” 

“You were a better swimmer, of course,” Felix grumbles without resentment. “But I wanted to go with you. I nearly dragged you under with me.” 

“We were both foolish children,” Dimitri says, uncertain why Felix has chosen this particular memory. 

“For most of my life, people have wished for me to become my brother,” Felix explains. “Which is why it is sometimes… hard for me to do this. Glenn was the one who saved you back then. I would have drowned you.” 

“I am not sure that I understand.” Dimitri wishes he understood. The way Felix is staring at him lets him know that this is very important. 

“I mean that if I stop being useful to you, let me go,” Felix says bluntly. “I have no interest in changing myself into someone I’m not.” 

Dimitri squints at him. His head still hurts. Felix speaks with such composure, his eyes the color of liquid gold in the afternoon sun. Dimitri finds himself briefly distracted by a loose strand of hair that brushes the top of Felix’s collar. 

Dimitri wants to tell him that he would never wish him to change, dangerous and sharp as he often is. He would no sooner ask a sword to dull its edge or a falcon to clip its wings. 

Creatures like Felix are beautiful in their harshness. 

That night, Dimitri makes love to his wife for the first time. It is awkward and somewhat unpleasant for both of them. 

Dimitri feels very shy of her eyes, strangely ashamed of his own body. He is hesitant, afraid that he will hurt her, and she is so quiet he is worried he will not know if he does. It takes a while of silent and uncomfortable shifting around until they find a position that seems to work. When it is over, Gisela lies with a pillow under her hips for a while. 

“It’s a superstition, probably,” she explains when he asks. “The old women say it will help conceive a child.”

“There is plenty of time,” Dimitri reassures her. She must be under such immense pressure, he realizes. He has been so consumed by his own worries, he has forgotten how much more she stands to lose. 

Gently, he takes her hand and presses it to his lips. It is more intimate than anything else they have done that night. 

\---

Gisela’s bleeding stops after a few months of trying. She is elated when she tells him. Elated and relieved, he realizes. She stops going riding and instead spends her days walking in the gardens, sitting and sketching at her window, and reading. She will not touch wine or any tea but the mild herbal blends. 

Dimitri does not tell anyone else at her instruction. While Gisela is usually quite pragmatic, about this she is deeply bound to tradition. No one should be told until the woman begins to show; it is the rule. To do otherwise will bring bad luck. 

They get word from Gautier territory that Mercedes has born a son. He has no Crest, which sets the courtiers to gossip, but Dimitri knows that both Sylvain and Mercedes likely prefer it that way. 

Annette sends letters to Fhirdiad finally announcing that she plans to marry Linhardt von Hevring, which strikes Felix as very funny for some reason. Dimitri is uncertain how to treat the matter. He did not expect Felix to react with such amusement to the news. 

“Ridiculous girl,” Felix says fondly as they are walking back from the stables one evening. They have spent the afternoon hunting in the forest, although Dimitri has little thrill from the chase anymore. Still, he likes riding, likes the focused quiet of the tracking, likes to see the hounds from the royal kennel get a chance to stretch their legs. 

“It strikes me as an odd marriage,” Dimitri says carefully. “Although perhaps they share an academic temperament.” 

“Their skill sets are complimentary. Annette has never rested a day in her life before,” Felix says, shaking his head with the bare hint of a smile. “I hope she sings for him.” 

“Annette sings?” Dimitri asks with interest. 

“Only to an honored few,” Felix replies. “And those with soft footsteps.” 

Dimitri cracks a smile at that. He is glad to see Felix happy, even if it confuses him further. That night in the garden, he had sounded so desperately sad. Then again, Felix has always had a stronger heart than him. Perhaps that wound has healed. 

“Anyways, concerning the deal with Almyra,” Felix continues, as if nothing odd has happened. “You need to push harder. It is Claude, after all. He’s baiting you to see if you accept such obviously unequal terms because he knows we need a lower tariff on textile imports if you are to outlaw the enclosure of arable land for pasture.” 

“If it is Claude, then how am I ever to outsmart him?” Dimitri asks with a shrug. 

“You have other strengths,” Felix says. It is one of those great and overwhelming compliments that Felix drops upon him sometimes in between barbs. It leaves him breathless. 

“I have been thinking,” Dimitri says after a moment. “Perhaps we ought to visit Garreg Mach this winter for Establishment Day.” 

Felix nods and then looks abruptly away, hiding his expression. 

“Anything to avoid Fhirdiad in the winter,” he says noncommittally. 

As they enter the palace courtyard, one of Gisela’s ladies rushes up to Dimitri, her face pale. 

“Your Majesty,” she says, quickly lowering into a curtsey that Dimitri wishes he could convince people to stop doing with him. “Your wife has taken ill.” 

Dimitri feels his breath catch. 

When the physicians allow him into the chamber to see her a few hours later, she is pale and tucked firmly into bed with a thick cloth pad between her legs. The servants have cleaned up the blood and sent the linens away to be laundered. 

Gisela turns her head away from him when he comes to sit beside her bed. 

“I am sorry,” she murmurs after a few minutes. Her voice is hoarse, but she is not crying. “I will do better next time.” 

“Don’t say that,” Dimitri whispers. “You have done nothing wrong.” 

Gisela swallows hard. 

“And yet they will condemn me for it,” she murmurs after a few moments. 

“No one will know,” Dimitri says firmly. “And when you are well, we will try again.” 

“Someone always knows,” Gisela bursts out. She has never spoken with such passion in her voice before. “And I am helpless. I sit here each day, a queen, and yet I am so powerless.” 

But he has given her every freedom, Dimitri thinks in momentary confusion. He has never compelled her to do anything. 

Yet as he looks at her now, sick and exhausted and sad, he realizes how blind he has been. She cannot read his mind. She cannot be certain that he will not one day decide to wield the power he holds over her. 

She will be a hostage for her entire life, knowing that if she ever truly angers him, he has the authority to take away everything he has given.

“Would you like to rule a kingdom?” Dimitri asks into the silence. “With me?” 

Gisela looks at him in confusion. 

“My strength has always been the people willing to help me,” Dimitri says softly. “And I need your help, if things truly are so unfair.” 

Gisela nods slowly, her mouth pulled tight somewhere between a smile and a grimace of pain. 

Dimitri reaches out and awkwardly strokes a strand of hair from her face. He does not love her yet, but something is growing between them. 

When he returns to his chambers that evening, Felix is waiting for him by the door. He looks anxious, his posture stiffer than usual and his feet shifting where he stands. 

“The queen,” he says after a moment. “I hear she is alive.” 

“She is,” Dimitri confirms. His voice shakes a bit when he says it. 

Felix sighs and then folds his arms over his chest.    
  
“I am sorry,” he says. “About the… for your loss.” 

Dimitri nods. 

Then he goes to his chambers and curls up in his clothes atop the blankets, biting down on his knuckles to stop himself from howling. He wishes that Dedue was back from Duscur. He wishes that any of the people who could have offered him comfort and guidance were still alive. He wishes that he knew how to heal as well as he knew how to hurt. 

\---

His first child is born in the autumn of next year. Dedue jokes that Dimitri suffered nearly as much in the labor as the queen. He spent the hours pacing and making himself nearly sick with worry. 

The situation in Fódlan is difficult that autumn. Some of the former Imperial territories have banded together for a campaign of slow sabotage against his new laws. Particularly unpopular is a tax on land ownership. Lords complain that he is bleeding them dry. He recommends that they sell off their estates into smaller shares. 

Also unpopular in the Kingdom is an edict forbidding custody of children to default to the father in cases of annulment or abandonment of a marriage. That particular bit of legislation is not entirely his own. 

Strangely, Dimitri notes that many of the demands and letters he receives from the rebels blame Felix. It is a tired old tactic to blame a bad advisor rather than a king for his policies. 

The discontents request that Dimitri banish Felix to Albinea so that they do not have to walk the dangerous rhetorical line of criticizing the king. 

But on the day his first child is born, Dimitri has no space for dark thoughts about rebels or difficult courtiers. When the nurse first hands him his son, he cannot help but let a tear slip down his cheek. He is so afraid he will drop the baby or crush him in his hands.

He had doubted that his heart could love anymore, but he has no doubts when he holds the child. The boy has his mother’s dark eyes, but Dimitri’s fair hair. Gisela smiles at him with such real affection when she sees him cradling their son in his arms. The baby falls asleep against his shoulder and Dimitri feels like he will break with happiness. 

Before they name the boy, Dimitri must go to Felix. Felix has been suspiciously absent from the crowd of courtiers congratulating him on the birth. When Dimitri finds him in the council chamber, his complexion is grey and his eyes are heavily shadowed. The troubles to the west have been weighing on him, Dimitri thinks.

“Boy?” he asks bluntly when Dimitri enters. Dimitri nods, unable to resist smiling. “Good. Now those jackals can stop pestering me about when you will name an heir.” 

“On the subject of names,” Dimitri asks nervously. “I wanted to hear your thoughts. We are thinking of calling him Lambert for my father.” 

“Fine,” Felix shrugs. “Not particularly original.” 

“I was wondering how you would feel if we gave him the second name Rodrigue,” Dimitri asks. “I know you and your father did not always get along, and I would hate to be a reminder of that to you.” 

Felix looks at him for a moment, his face an odd mixture of many emotions all raging beneath a still surface. Then finally he nods. 

“That’s fine,” Felix says briskly. “Perhaps he’ll be an improvement upon his namesake.” 

Dimitri cannot hide a grin of relief. Felix rubs his temples and goes quiet. 

“You seem happy,” Felix finally says. 

“I am,” Dimitri admits. “Despite myself, as you would say. I’m not sure I have been so happy in a long time.” 

“Well,” Felix replies and then sighs. “I may have been wrong. About your marriage.” 

“Are you sure you’re feeling well, Felix?” Dimitri says, unable to resist the urge to laugh at him a little. 

“Don’t gloat,” Felix growls back. “Anyways, I am not good with children. Once he can hold a blade, then bring him to me.” 

Dimitri does almost no work in the first week after his son is born. And the Kingdom does not fall into ruin. That is a comfort to know. 

He spends most of his time in the nursery, holding the child and rocking him back to sleep when he cries. Dimitri sleeps irregularly anyways, so he is not bothered by the late hours as much as Gisela is. The baby is healthy, but Dimitri cannot take his eyes off of him for long without a whisper in the back of his head asking if the child is still breathing. 

By the end of the month, Lambert Rodrigue Blaiddyd is officially named his heir and blessed by Archbishop Byleth in a grand ceremony in the royal chapel. Gisela looks radiant as she holds the baby, wrapped in silken cloth embroidered with gold. 

When she hands the infant to Byleth to be blessed, a tiny hand reaches up to clutch at the dangling pendant that the Archbishop wears around her neck. A faint gasp radiates through the chapel as the silver chain snaps in his little fist. 

And thus everyone discovers that Lambert Rodrigue Blaiddyd does indeed bear his father’s Crest. 

After the ceremony, Dimitri lingers in the chapel a while longer. He asks his attendants to wait for him and he descends into the dark chill of the crypt below. His father and his stepmother have been carved in effigy, lying still and silent as though they were merely sleeping. He knows his father’s remains are in the tomb, his severed head carefully sewn back to his neck by the royal physicians. He is not sure what is inside of his stepmother’s tomb. 

He whispers quietly to their ghosts that he has a son of his own now. 

Behind Patricia’s tomb, he spots another familiar grave. There is no effigy, just an engraved tile on the floor marking where they buried the remains of his birth mother. He has not thought of her often. He has no memories of her, only of Patricia, tender yet melancholy with him, always smiling for his father. 

But now he looks at his birth mother’s grave and wonders what she must have been like. She had been a daughter of House Charon, a powerful family, and she had their Crest in her blood. He must as well, although it has not made manifest. His father had seldom spoken of her, although not because he grieved her greatly. He had married Patrcia quickly after her death, after all. 

Dimitri imagines her for a moment, his image based on half-remembered portraits rather than flesh and blood. Fair-haired, thin-lipped, unsmiling. A woman wed without much love, sent from her home, doomed to die young after producing the child required of her. He wonders if she had held him as he did his own son, with so much fear and wonder. 

He would not blame her, he thinks, if she did not love him. The life of such a woman was hard in ways he could never understand. Perhaps if she had lived longer, his father’s affection might have grown. But perhaps not. 

Perhaps this is why his own heart remains so numb. Perhaps it is his inheritance, his birthright. A child born from a loveless match will never thrive, they say. Perhaps he has doomed his own son to this same fate. 

\---

His child passes his third year when Sylvain and Mercedes first bring their own son to Fhirdiad. The boys stumble around in the grass as they look on, Dimitri flinching every time they totter or slip on their unsteady legs. Gisela gives him a reassuring nod. 

“Children are durable, trust me,” Sylvain laughs. “Mercedes found him eating from the dog’s bowl last week and he hasn’t died yet.” 

“The orphans receive far finer care, I assure you,” Mercedes says when she sees Dimitri’s face. “Emile is simply very interested in dogs right now. I believe he may grow up like a little wolf pup.”

Sylvain wraps an arm easily around her waist as they watch the strange games their children are playing. Dimitri wonders if he ought to do that. He and Gisela never touch beyond the occasional brush of their hands. 

“Dimitri?” Mercedes’ voice asks through the fog of his thoughts. 

“Sorry,” he says, “I am listening.” 

“I wanted to tell you how much your statute on divorce means to me,” Mercedes says warmly. “If my own mother had such options, I think… well, it will do so much good.” 

Dimitri glances to Gisela. She does not seem to want her role acknowledged, so he nods uncomfortably. 

“It sure upset that new Count in Gloucester territory,” Sylvain adds with dark amusement. “Perhaps he regrets not making more of an effort now that his wife is entitled to half of his estate.” 

“Yes, I am afraid our troubles are growing,” Dimitri says wearily. “Felix has gone to meet with the former Alliance lords and try to placate them.” 

“He’s taken Ingrid, right?” Mercedes asks. Dimitri nods. “Well, I feel better knowing that he has someone to watch his back. It worries me to hear the things some people say of him.” 

“What do they say?” 

“Ignorant garbage,” Sylvain replies with a snort of irritation. “Nonsense about how he is sabotaging you, that he has always resented you, that this is all some absurd revenge plot for the death of his brother.” 

Dimitri feels a burst of something hot inside of him. Rage, he realizes. Rage like he hasn’t felt in years. He is a man of thirty now, he has not seen combat on the field since the war, and yet he feels the sudden compulsion to break the clasps that lock the heroes relics away in the vaults and storm out into the city to slaughter anyone who would speak such evil words. 

“If you know who has spread such malicious lies,” Dimitri snarls, “If you have names, Sylvain, I will… I would…” 

His son screams, a high shriek of fear and joy as he tumbles into the grass. There is a beetle in the dirt, making its slow way across the lawn. The children are enchanted by it. 

Dimitri takes a deep breath. 

“I’m sorry,” he mutters after the anger passes. A voice from just beside his right cheek whispers that he will never change, that he will never atone, that he will never be fixed. 

“You care greatly for His Grace,” Gisela says, speaking for the first time in a while, her voice nearly a question. 

“Yeah, it’s difficult to tell sometimes,” Sylvain says, already smoothing over the moment of ugliness. “But those two have been inseparable since they were children.” 

“I see. Duke Fraldarius has never seemed so outwardly friendly,” Gisela says, her brows drawing together. 

“Felix is never friendly, even to his friends,” Sylvain snorts. 

“I do recall, though, that when we first got word of your execution in Fhirdiad, he locked himself in his rooms for a week,” Mercedes adds. 

Dimitri has never heard that story before. After his own supposed execution, he had been too busy running wild and insane through the forests of western Faerghus, slaughtering Imperial troops and any villagers who tried to turn him over to the Adrestian army. By the time the rest of the Kingdom nobles had caught up to him, he had left a fairly clear trail to indicate that he was still alive. 

But the thought of Felix, Felix back then, Felix before he had learned to tolerate Dimitri again, grieving for him? It is bizarre to imagine. 

Dimitri is suddenly hit with a memory so clear and powerful, that he wonders for a moment if it is a hallucination. That day on the beach. He’d been lying on his back, coughing up water. 

“I was teaching you to swim, your highness, not to drown,” Glenn’s shaken voice had echoed from somewhere out of his field of vision. 

Above him, he remembers Felix, his hair wet, saltwater dripping from his chin. He had bent over Dimitri’s face, eyes wild, filled with terror. And when Dimitri had finished coughing, he had leaned down. Felix had brushed his lips over Dimitri’s for just a second. 

Why had he done that? 

Dimitri composes himself and recollects that he is a man in his thirties, a man with a wife and son, a man with a kingdom to rule, and a hundred sins to atone for. 

He puts that memory away. 

Sylvain and Mercedes stay at the palace until the end of the week. It is so good to see them again. He and Sylvain go riding together and Gisela actually seems to take a liking to Mercedes, far more than she has to any of her ladies or his other friends. 

It is the day before they depart, when horses are already being selected and their carriage outfitted, when the messenger arrives from Gloucester. It is one of Ingrid’s soldiers, a woman from Galatea territory who has ridden all night. She has a bloody gash on her shoulder when she delivers the message. 

Dimitri is sitting in the windowed chamber where his council usually meets. His business is minor that day, a few petitions to grant, and a pension for a woman who has developed a form of movable type for printing letters. The messenger is admitted as a few of the other lords and ladies are still departing. 

“Lady Galatea sends word from Gloucester territory, Your Majesty,” she says, collapsing to one knee as she begins to speak. “They are betrayed. Your envoys were ambushed on the road. Duke Fraldarius seemed to be their intended target. While the assassins were repelled, Lady Galatea requests immediate reinforcements to aid in their retreat.” 

Dimitri stares at her, his mouth partially open. He feels the strange urge to laugh. Not a laugh of mirth, the dangerous laughter, the sort that bubbled up inside of him deep in the Holy Tomb beneath Garreg Mach. Because this cannot be real. It is a joke. 

“Are they--” he manages to say. “Is he--” 

He cannot say it aloud. He cannot ask this woman if Felix is alive, or if he is lying on the side of the road far away, bleeding out into the dirt. Just like his brother, Dimitri thinks and shudders, just like his brother. 

“His Grace is badly wounded. Lady Galatea has minor injuries, but she fights on,” the messenger reports. 

Dimitri tips his head back, closes his eye for a moment. 

“Ashe,” he finally manages to say, “Find Ashe. Prepare a battalion. Someone find me a lance.” 

“Your Majesty,” one of his clerks says, startled. “You surely will not--” 

“Saddle wyverns,” Dimitri snarls back. “And move quickly.” 

He has not worn his armor outside of a parade or a holiday in years. He finds that it still fits. The master of his armory hesitantly offers him a silver tipped lance before he is racing to the stables to find Ashe. His expression must be awful. No one is objecting. No one is even speaking to him. 

“Your Majesty!” a familiar voice calls as he is running down the steps of the palace. It is Gisela, her clothing rumpled and her expression frightened as she stumbles towards him, a few of her ladies trying to keep pace behind her. “Where are you going?”

“I am needed,” he says, not breaking his stride as she dashes after him. 

“My lord, please, my lord,” she begs, trying to grasp for his hand. He pulls it away. “Do not do this. Your knights are more than capable, please. Do not put yourself at such risk.” 

“I must go,” Dimitri replies, strain making his voice into a rough growl. “I have survived worse.” 

“Dimitri!” Gisela pleads. She sinks to her knees in the grass. “You have a son. Think of him, I beg you. Do not rush into danger and leave him--”

“Fatherless? The poor child. What must that be like?” he interupts, finally stopping to look at her. He feels that viscous part of himself rising to the surface, no matter how he tries to stop it. He is a wild boar, foaming and bleeding and ready to fight until it can no longer stand.

Gisela says nothing in response. She shifts her position, rearranging her skirts into the image of a dignified plea. Her head is tucked down to her chest, her hands raised to him. 

He turns away and makes for the stable. 

It has been a long time since he rode on a wyvern. His horsemanship is excellent, but he always forgets how sickeningly different the shifting of the winged creature is beneath his legs. Ashe’s expression is nearly as dark as his own as they mount up together. He has an axe at his side and a bow slung across his back. 

It feels almost nostalgic, Dimitri thinks, as they ride to battle together. 

When they arrive, it is dark. Ingrid’s scout leads them back to a small village in the foothills of the Oghma mountains. Ingrid has chosen a place to make a stand if she must. The town is barricaded and the villagers have armed themselves. 

As soon as they land, Ashe is already organizing patrols of the area, sending scouts out to make sure more bands of rebels are not hiding in wait. Dimitri runs to where he spots Ingrid, ignoring the gasps as several of the villagers recognize abruptly that the king has come. A few knees buckle around the square as they abruptly drop or bow at his presence. 

Ingrid looks fierce and bloodied when he spots her. Her blonde hair is stiff with rusty red on one side, but she is standing and holding her sword. Before Dimitri can speak to her, Ashe runs past him and clutches her briefly in his arms. 

“I apologize,” he says, leaping back immediately when he sees Dimitri pause. “I will see to the perimeter, I just… I am relieved.” 

Ingrid gives his hand a tiny squeeze as he pulls away to go. 

“Felix is in the mayor’s house for now. I sent another messenger to Garreg Mach as well, so more healers are on the way,” Ingrid informs Dimitri as soon as she regains her composure. “The local bishop has seen to his immediate wounds, but… it is bad, your majesty.”

“I want to see him,” Dimitri says. He suddenly feels out of place. What value does he have here? There is no raging battle. He cannot tend to wounds, cannot ride out alone to search the hills. All he does is bring more attention and thus danger upon this village. 

“This way, then,” Ingrid says. Her voice is very hard, but Dimitri sees a few tears shimmering on her lashes. Ingrid has always taken her duty so seriously.

“I know you did all you could,” Dimitri says haltingly, as he follows her towards the largest house in the village common. Ingrid nods mutely, clearly too choked by her shame to speak again. 

Felix is lying in some stranger’s bed in the dark. An old man is waiting by his bedside, lips murmuring in prayer. Someone has removed his shirt and Dimitri sees bandages wrapped around his chest. His hair is splayed out across the pillow. When has it grown so long and so soft looking? 

He stirs a little as Dimitri approaches, but he seems not to be fully awake. The local bishop starts at the sight of him, his eyes darting to the eyepatch and the armor and putting the picture together. 

“They ambushed us in a valley. My soldiers fared well on the wing, but Felix was on horseback. They surrounded him, killed the animal out from under him. I didn’t realize until it was too late they were ignoring everyone else. He killed six soldiers on his own before one of their dark mages mired his feet and then…” Ingrid broke off. “Well, his bleeding has finally stopped, but Dimitri, his… his arm.” 

Dimitri looks down to see the mangled remains of the greatest sword arm in all of Fódlan carefully laid out on the covers, wrapped in linens, spotted with dried blood. 

Slowly, Dimitri kneels down beside the bed. Ingrid sniffs a few times behind him, trying to stop herself from crying. The bishop leaps up from his stool. 

“A chair, Your Majesty,” he says, voice trembling, “I shall fetch… ah, I shall…” 

“I require nothing,” Dimitri whispers. “But thank you for your help.” 

The man hesitates and then retreats out of the room. 

Dimitri reaches out, gingerly puts a hand to Felix’s forehead, and then smooths a few strands of hair out of his face. Felix’s eyes open just a slit. His pupils are oddly dilated. They must have given him something for the pain. 

“You’re here,” he murmurs. Dimitri cannot tell from his slurred voice if he is relieved or furious. 

“I’m here,” Dimitri affirms. “You can rest. All is well, now.” 

Felix’s eyes slowly slide closed again. 

“You may leave me here, Ingrid,” Dimitri says calmly after a few moments. “When Ashe has found something, send someone to fetch me. I will watch him until then.” 

“Thank you, Dimitri,” Ingrid says, then adds, “I am glad you came.” 

When she shuts the door behind her, Dimitri allows a strained, keening cry to escape from his throat. He presses his forehead down against the edge of the bed. Felix lies there, his breathing faint and laboring. Dimitri cannot keep back a low moan of agony. 

Dimitri has had a terrible, terrible revelation kneeling by that bed. It crashes over him like one of those enormous ocean waves that had nearly dragged him to the bottom of the sea as a child. It is unbearable, overpowering, as unstoppable as his mad rages or his black despair. 

He has been so disgustingly ignorant, he realizes in that moment. He had believed his heart too damaged to love because it had not jumped for the professor or for Gisela. The way it is jumping in his chest now. 

He is so stupid. It is like his eye, gone for so many years, his vision has filled in the gaps so that he forgets his own blindspot. Felix is that blindspot. 

And there is no going back. Time is a river and he cannot batter his way upstream to warn his younger self that obviously,  _ obviously _ , he is in love already, has always been, maybe, has spent most of his adult life hopelessly, painfully in love with Felix. 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know I'm fired up when I start going off on Enclosure Acts


	2. Chapter 2

Ashe’s scouts have found the remaining rebels holed up in an abandoned fort by morning. Dimitri roots them out easily. Count Gloucester has apologetically sent his own troops, groveling and pleading that he knew nothing of the ambush. Dimitri is still too furious to think clearly about it. One of the Leicester lords must have collaborated with the malcontents, and he will find it out eventually. 

He does not kill the leader of the rebels, although it is a struggle. As soon as they see him on the field and recognize who has come, most of the rebels attempt to flee into the woods. Dimitri breaks their commander's elbow with a single wrench of his hand and then drags the screaming man back into the custody of Ashe and his knights. 

He cannot handle an interrogation yet. His blood thunders in his ears and his vision is tinged with a haze of red when he so much as thinks about it. 

The Knights of Seiros arrive by the end of the day to heal the wounded and help with transport back to Garreg Mach. 

White magic, Dimitri knows from extensive experience, can stop a wound from bleeding, even mend a fracture. But human hands must still set muscle and tendon and bone back into place properly. White magic leaves knots of thick scar tissue, cannot reconnect vein and nerve and flesh once it has been severed, cannot regrow limbs or eyes once they have been cut away. The fingers of Dimitri’s left hand still lack some sensation after the relatively minor puncture wound he took in the shoulder so many years ago now in Enbarr. 

So it is clear, essentially, that short of a miracle, Felix will likely never use his right arm again. 

When they arrive at Garreg Mach, it takes only one look for the Archbishop to see that Dimitri is coming apart at the seams. She sends Felix, still drugged into a hazy stupor, to the infirmary. Annette is there already, alongside a vaguely familiar man with long hair and perpetually half-lidded eyes who, despite his nose wrinkling in disgust at the sight of the bandages, is purportedly one of the greatest healers in Fódlan. 

Meanwhile, Dimitri stands in the cathedral beside the Archbishop, looking up at the altar in the same position he used to haunt day and night during the war. The students are in awe of him, whispering and flooding out of the dormitories to catch a glimpse as he passed through the familiar grounds. 

“Are you angry?” Byleth asks as they stand there, looking up at the stained glass windows refracting a soft swirl of color over the stone floor. 

“Yes,” Dimitri says, his voice low. 

“Do you feel responsible?” Byleth asks. 

Dimitri releases a shaky breath before he answers. 

“Yes,” he says. 

Byleth gently reaches out and takes his hand. Her slender fingers entwine with his. Her palms are warm and dry, calloused to match his own. He suppresses a shiver at the memory of those hands in the rain, drawing him out of the deepest darkness he has ever fallen into. 

“Blaming yourself accomplishes nothing. But I will not lie to you and say that your actions had no part in causing this,” Byleth says gravely. “You carry a responsibility much like my own. By refusing to capitulate on your beliefs, you risk violent response. But you could not have known, could not have weighed these consequences before you acted. Time cannot run backwards.” 

She says it with more seriousness than the old adage deserves, as though drawing this observation from personal experience rather than proverbial wisdom. 

“I have made mistakes that I cannot fix,” Dimitri says roughly. He keeps his eye firmly on the light from the windows, clinging to Byleth’s hand so tightly he worries he will harm her. 

“Well,” Byleth says with a bit of warm humor, “I need not remind you to remember them. But you must also learn from them. How many times in your training have you fumbled or fallen or struggled?” 

“Ever the professor,” Dimitri says with a soft laugh. “But, professor, I-- how can I live for my beliefs if I don’t know what they are anymore?” 

She does not react as his voice grows thick and his throat begins to close up. 

“You will find them again,” she reassures him. Then she slides her hand out of his and he draws himself back together a bit. “I request that you allow the church to interrogate these men you have captured. There are still forces at work in Fódlan whose influence hides in the dark. Allow me to attend to them.” 

“I cannot simply ignore--” Dimitri begins, but Byleth shakes her head. He falls silent like a schoolboy again. 

“Allow me,” she repeats. “You have a future to build, without worrying yourself over sins so ancient that only the goddess remembers.” 

Dimitri nods jerkily, feeling his anger flare and sputter in his chest until he finally suppresses the flames. 

“What can I say to Felix?” Dimitri finally asks. “What can I tell him, professor? His arm… you know how he is… you know what it means to him.”

Byleth looks grim and her brows draw together. Sometimes she still looks odd to him with her lightened hair and eyes, although he’s known her that way for far longer than when her piercing gaze was a deep blue. 

“I expect that none of us can say anything he will like right now,” Byleth sighs. “But I have never seen him quit before a challenge.” 

When Felix does wake up he is predictably furious. Dimitri allows him the dignity of letting the healers explain the condition of his sword arm first before he comes to visit. 

And in all honesty, he is somehow busy again. His attendants and clerks and messengers have all found their way to the monastery with surprising speed, and once again he must draft responses to the terrified Leicester lords and release a proclamation condemning the attack without inciting more violence. 

But when he does find a space to visit Felix in the infirmary, he has not seen the man so angry with him since… since the western rebellion probably. 

“You idiot,” Felix rasps as soon as Dimitri enters his room. He is propped up, his wounded arm wrapped firmly and laid at his side. Dimitri can tell by the set of his face that he is in pain. Someone, probably Annette, has bound his hair back away from his face. “Why are you here?” 

Because, Dimitri thinks with a jolt of pain, I love you. Because I am in love with you and I have a wife and a son. Simple. 

“I wanted to help,” Dimitri says aloud. “Felix, goddess above, I’m so sorry. I should never have put you in this position. I should have come myself.” 

“Don’t you dare,” Felix says, his voice dangerous, trembling slightly with restrained venom. “Don’t you dare patronize me.” 

“Felix, please,” Dimitri tries again, disliking how desperate he sounds. “Please. Let me help.” 

“Help with what?” Felix asks and then he laughs in a very nasty and unpleasant way. “Goddess knows, you need my help more than I have ever needed yours. I am a soldier, boar. If I am wounded, so be it. Save your pity.” 

Dimitri presses his lips together. He sees then how it will be. Felix will simply refuse to admit how much this injury has devastated him. He will lash out and then slink away to hide like any other wounded animal. 

“Alright then,” Dimitri says after a moment. “You are right, as always. But please, let me offer what little skill I have to aid in your recovery. I need you whole and well again to advise me.” 

Felix stares resolutely towards the window for a moment. His eyes are not fully focused on it. He is an exercise in intentional stillness. 

“Fine,” he finally grits out. “Just remind your council that I am still alive and I will be within striking distance of them again soon enough.” 

Dimitri laughs, more relief than anything else. 

“They shall not be allowed to forget,” he swears. “But I wish-- no, it is not your fault. But I wish the people did not hate you so.” 

Felix breathes with the evenness of a man well-trained in clear-headed combat. He is as tense as a coiled spring, although his injured arm lies limp and makes the line of his shoulders somewhat uneven. 

“I don’t care,” he finally says, his words short and clipped, “better me than you.” 

Dimitri has only recently become aware that he has a heart again. It is difficult to learn so soon after that it can break. 

\---

When he returns to Fhirdiad, Dimitri is swamped with work. He refuses to allow such a situation to fester once again and thus, he must see to many matters personally. He summons lords and wealthy merchants and even a few former Imperial commanders to his court and tries to persuade them. When persuasion fails, Dimitri simply threatens them. It feels ugly and brutal, the way of the past, against everything he has tried to be in his own reign. But it works. 

He travels frequently, as well. He needs to be present, to be unforgettable, to remind people why they chose to follow him. It is exhausting, living in the houses of strangers he barely trusts and riding his horse until the mare is nearly lame with overwork. 

He misses his son’s fourth birthday, instead suffering through a long summit with the newly established commonwealth of Rowe and its guildsmasters. When he returns, he offers the child a handsewn poppet in the shape of a hound. It is a pitance. Gisela cooly reminds him that Lambert prefers cats. 

Gisela has been somewhat cold to him since his return. He does not blame her. The way he had stormed off and snapped at her had been beastly and now that he has experienced his revelation, he is keenly aware that all of her worst fears about him were likely justified. 

As much as he pretends to be a better sort of man, he has married a woman he does not love, he has kept her in the prison of their marriage for the sake of an heir, and now he has found someone else he prefers. At least, Dimitri thinks with bitter longing, she will not have to worry about Felix shaming her by warming his bed. 

Meanwhile, Felix returns to work as soon as he can walk again. He appears in an even fouler temper than usual as he stalks around the palace, kicking open doors when he cannot manage them with one hand and hissing insults at anyone who asks if he needs to rest. He starts violently when the representative of the Itha people’s assembly comes suddenly around a corner and then he shouts the woman into tears when she dares to ask if he is alright. 

He wears his injured arm in a sling while the healers keep calling him in to see if they can restore any more of his tendons and muscles. His secretary does his writing for him and Dimitri wonders with crushing grief when he first sees the neat cursive if he will ever read Felix’s narrow scrawl again. 

One morning while the Lord Treasurer is reporting on how they might shift some assets around to build more schools in the countryside, Dimitri abruptly and terrifyingly boils over. 

It begins with some tiresome debate over port tariffs. The Groom of the Privy Chamber objects to taking any more money from the royal household, but then Duke Gerth, who has been serving as ambassador to Dagda, complains that more tariffs will destroy the ports of the Rhodos Coast. Dimitri is tired. He leans his head against his fist and listens without energy or enthusiasm. 

“Your Majesty, unless you wish for me to let servants go, there is nothing to spare from your household,” the Privy Purse complains. Felix steps in.

“Put the tariff on coffee,” he says bluntly. “It is a luxury, not a staple. Noblemen will still pay for it, I assure you.” 

“I believe we are addressing the king, Duke Fraldarius,” Duke Gerth snaps. “Or do you presume to speak for him now?” 

In an instant, Dimitri is on his feet, and he has knocked an inkwell somehow onto the floor with a crash. 

“Out,” he commands. 

Duke Gerth’s face drains to pale white. 

“Your Majesty, I meant no offence--” 

“Out! All of you, out!” Dimitri shouts. 

There are a few minutes of shuffling and chairs creaking as the chamber empties. Felix remains, seeming to understand that he is exempt from Dimitri’s order. Dimitri paces to the window, letting his hands dig into the stone of the ledge as he tries to get himself back under control. 

“That was counterproductive,” Felix says after a moment. “And poorly done.” 

“You’d rather I sit there and smile while they insult you?” Dimitri demands. 

“You should show me less favor,” Felix says, pragmatic as always. “Their jealousy is only a distraction.”

“You want me to dissemble, then? You want me to lie and tell them that you are wrong?” Dimitri fumes. “I refuse. I will not play these cruel little games. These nobles are nothing but filthy vultures and if they have the gall to insult you when you openly bear wounds acquired in my service--” 

“Go rest,” Felix cuts him off. “Be with your family.” Dimitri looks over his shoulder. Felix’s mouth is a narrow line. Dimitri has upset him. Dimitri has upset everyone.

“No, I cannot,” Dimiri says petulantly. 

“You have worked yourself into a state and you are useless right now,” Felix warns him. It stings. 

“I will not,” Dimitri insists. Hissing voices make it difficult to concentrate, ebbing wordlessly at the edge of his hearing. He does not know what he even intends to do, but he will not rest. He will not go inflict himself on his family and he will not allow more harm to come to Felix. 

Felix reaches out and seizes him by the collar with his good hand. Dimitri could push back, break free from his grip easily. But from the delicate way Felix still holds his shoulder, Dimitri knows it would harm him. At the end of the day, he is always the one who has harmed Felix. 

His anger abruptly collapses into exhaustion and sadness. He bows his head, unable to speak without risking his voice breaking. 

Slowly, Felix lets go of his collar. 

“Please, just… rest,” Felix says after a moment, uncharacteristically pleading. 

Dimitri remembers Felix on the beach again, his dripping hair, his worried eyes. Felix, who does not want to be the reason he drowns, Felix, who would rather take the wounds meant for him. Felix, who once kissed him on a beach when they were children. Felix, who stood in the garden on his wedding night and gasped with pain again and again. 

Dimitri feels too deranged to even wonder if there is a possibility. He allows himself to be led from the room. He changes out of his rumpled clothes in his chambers and washes his face. 

Gisela is taking tea in the garden while Lambert is playing in the sunshine. He goes down and joins them. His boy is getting so strong. Dimitri teaches him wearily how to avoid breaking his toys and smashing his dishes with that notorious Blaiddyd strength. 

“It is unlike you to take the afternoon off,” Gisela observes, revealing nothing as she watches him. “Has something happened?” 

“Felix is handling it,” Dimitri murmurs, holding his squirming son tight to his chest for a moment before the boy is racing off again in search of snails. 

“His Grace is very devoted,” Gisela says neutrally, “to work such long hours after his injury.” 

“Yes,” Dimitri agrees. He feels numb, only able to stare ahead of him and reel after the events of the morning. 

“I believe I owe him my thanks,” Gisela adds. “And my apology.” 

Dimitri looks sharply at her. Gisela is carefully watching him. Her dark red hair is pulled back very tightly and he notices that her face looks a bit hollow around the eyes now. 

“What apology?” Dimitri asks. 

“I have believed malicious rumors,” Gisela says, her voice going quiet. “And I have spread them. It was a mistake made in ignorance. I only perceived that he treated you with cruelty, but now it is clear to me that he loves you very dearly.” 

Her words paralyze him with a mess of conflicting emotions. He wants to feel revolted with her, to interrogate her about the rumors she has heard and sometimes spread. But he would be a terrible hypocrite to penalize his wife when she is already suffering under the burden of his indifferent love. 

And she tells him that Felix loves him dearly, which makes his chest clench in a way he cannot allow himself to think about. 

As a result, he merely stares at her for a few moments, waiting for it all to somehow make sense. What comes out of his mouth next is sheer garbled nonsense. 

“Do you want to have a daughter?”

\---

A few weeks later, when Dimitri feels more himself again, he slips out of Gisela’s chamber before sunrise. She will not be offended. He has made her aware of his troubles with sleep and it is not unusual for him to get up and wander the palace for a while when he cannot find rest. He has reduced the size of his household considerably over the years, allowing him to have a modicum of privacy by night when only the guards are awake. 

Dimitri wanders back to his own chamber, but the thought of his cold bed is unappealing. Instead, he sheds his robe for loose training breeches and a simple tunic. If nothing else, the exercise will help him to calm his mind. 

The palace training grounds are behind the stables. The structure is a simple wooden arena, the floor nothing but packed dirt and open to the sky. In the early hours, the air is icy cold, but it will feel alright once his blood is moving. 

He slips through the doors, however, and finds that he is not alone. 

Felix stands in the center of the circular arena. Over time, he has stopped wearing his sling. There are no more bandages. The wounds are as healed as they can be, leaving him with only dull red scars. He has been wearing gloves more often. 

Dimitri hesitates, skulking behind the wooden scaffold of beams. He knows he ought to leave. He can practice in the pastures if he truly craves exercise. Whatever Felix is here to do, there is almost certainly a reason he has chosen to do it before sunrise. 

But then he watches Felix pick up a sword and pass it into his right hand. With determination, he raises the blade, following the basic forms they were taught as children. His extended arm trembles slightly. He holds it. Then he begins to shift into a block. As his elbow bends, Dimitri hears a faint hiss of pain and the sword lands with a muffled thump against the dirt. 

Felix turns his back on where Dimitri is hiding, breathes for a few seconds, and then picks the sword up. He returns to the first position. His footwork is impeccable as he slides into the thrust and then back into a block, but…

The blade clatters against the ground again. Felix seizes it back. 

He moves slower this time, using his other arm to support his wrist slightly as he pivots. Dimitri hears a distant grunt as he manages to get his arm into the block pose. He holds it and Dimitri sees even the light training sword shaking in his grip, the blade trembling until it slips out of his grasp. 

This time, Felix kneels to pick up the weapon. He does not get up. He holds the sword in his lap and then slowly bends forward, his back shaking. 

Crying, Dimitri realizes with horror. He is silently crying, the only audible evidence the occasional hitching of his breath. 

Dimitri feels a cold part of him melting. He cannot do this anymore. He cannot be strong after watching this. Despite his vows, he is still weak. 

He steps out from the shadows, trying not to startle Felix who still jerks around as soon as he hears the shifting of a boot on the sandy dirt. 

”What are you--” Felix begins, rubbing his good arm rapidly over his face. His voice still sounds wet and thick in the throat. “Get out of here!”

“Felix,” Dimitri says desperately, stepping forwards. His body is shaking. Felix recoils. 

“What is wrong with you?” he rasps. His eyes are still red and puffy despite his tone. ”Leave me alone. If you’ve gone mad again, do it somewhere else.”

“Felix, I made a mistake,” Dimitri says unsteadily, closing the distance between them further. Felix’s face spasms with a brief frown of concern. 

“Then we can fix it later,” he says. “Not now when I’m... tired.” 

“Oh Felix,” Dimitri nearly moans. He is standing right in front of him now. Felix is not a small man by any means, but Dimitri is so tall he must tilt his chin up slightly to meet his eyes. And those eyes. Defiant as always despite the tears still caught in his lashes. 

Dimitri leans down and kisses him. He puts a hand on the side of Felix’s face, guiding their lips together and for a moment everything is warm and perfect. 

Then something hits him in the nose so hard that he staggers, disoriented, and stumbles away. He reaches up to his face and feels a trickle of blood. Felix has just punched him in the face. He looks up in stunned disbelief. 

“You hit me,” he says in wonder. 

“You…” Felix stutters. His face has gone white and his posture is rigid. “Did that.” 

“I thought… I’m sorry,” Dimitri rushes to explain. He feels like he is collapsing in on himself. “I’m sorry, I just, I remembered on the beach how you… I don’t know… I don’t know what to say, I’m so sorry.” 

“You have a wife,” Felix reminds him viciously. “You have a son. What is wrong with you?” 

“I don’t know,” Dimitri says. Blood is running over his lips and he feels his teeth grinding as he holds his head in his hands. “I don’t know. Something in me is wrong. So much of me is wrong and broken now, I can’t tell sometimes…” 

“Don’t say that. You’re just--” Felix stares at him. If nothing else, the shock has dried his tears. “You’re not yourself right now.” 

“I can’t keep living like this,” Dimitri admits and then a moan of grief tears out of him. His hands clench into fists in his hair. He can taste salt and iron in his mouth as he speaks. “I can’t, Felix, I can’t. I can’t love her, not in the way I should. Not in the way that I love you.” 

“Stop that!” Felix urges him as loud as he can without alerting a guard. “Stop saying things like that, Dimitri.” 

“But it’s true,” Dimitri looks up. He must look like a madman with blood running down his chin and his hair wild and his eyes so desperate. There is little wonder Felix is disgusted by him. “I love you, Felix. I have loved you for years and years, and I just… I couldn’t see it. And now I am trapped. I am trapped and I am so weak.” 

Felix’s lips tremble, then his mouth crumples back into something close to a sob. He tilts his head back, his good arm holding the injured one tightly to his body. 

“Goddess, Dimitri,” he finally manages to say. “You know I feel the same.”

“How could I have known?” Dimitri asks weakly, trying not to make it an accusation. There is something wild and giddy in the thought, though. Felix feels the same. Felix feels the same way that he does, which is huge and overwhelming. 

“What difference would it have made if I’d said anything?” Felix says fiercely. “I’m not… I’m not a match for you. You needed an heir and a queen and a powerful alliance. What difference would it have made, but to put more guilt on your shoulders?” 

“I would have chosen you,” Dimitri says. Felix flinches. “I would have. But now it’s all a mess.” 

Felix looks at him, wretched as he is with blood still drying around his nose and his eye sore from lack of sleep. Both of them are wrecked right now, Dimitri realizes. Felix cradling the shaking ruin of his arm and Dimitri nearly sick over his regrets. 

“Damn it,” Felix finally growls and then steps forward quickly. “Damn it all, Dimitri, just once then.” 

He kisses much harder than Dimitri had. The taste of blood mingles in their mouths as Felix’s tongue darts through his lips. Dimitri pulls him closer greedily. If this is going to be their moment, he wants to consume every drop of it. 

Felix smells of sweat and pine and smoke. His body is hard and precise and his touch is rough. His injured arm merely rests against Dimitri’s back while the other hand rakes up and down his body. Dimitri finds it much harder to be self-conscious as all of his initial fears begin to fade away. This is Felix after all. He knows his body, his sounds, the looks on his face, better than he knows his own. 

And after all, it is only going to happen once, so what does it matter if he whimpers and gasps and makes a mess of himself on the sandy floor of the training grounds? 

\---

It happens more than once. 

What begins as a desperate moment of weakness for both of them morphs into an arrangement. If it were merely physical, Dimitri thinks, that would be easier. As it stands, it is nearly unbearable to be around Felix every day without desperately longing for him. 

They steal a few kisses in the halls of the palace, but that is too risky. Sometimes they take a ride together, find a copse of trees to provide some shelter, and leave their horses tied to the branches. Other times, when they are away on diplomatic business, Felix will steal him away under the pretense of reviewing some courtly matter, but instead drag him into an unused room. Once, Dimitri even comes to visit the Fraldarius estate, although that proves to inspire too much gossip. 

If it were only physical, Dimitri thinks, he could put a stop to it. He could have his sweet memory and then end the infidelity cleanly. But it is so clearly not so simple of a matter as attraction. It is not just that Dimitri has never felt his body stir and respond so strongly before, in ways he thought were impossible for him; it is also a form of devotion. The thought of not seeing Felix, even for the few weeks when their business separates them, fills him with panic and aching longing. 

As careful as they are, there are always too many eyes. It is doomed, Dimitri often thinks, although he has no idea what future he was even planning for. He is still a married man. His sin will not lessen for how often it is repeated. 

It is exacerbated by the fact that Gisela is pregnant again with their second child. She appears very content, but she is reluctant to travel or leave the palace. Dimitri finds her company agonizing, but it is the sort of pain that he can endure. It feels righteous that he should be punished by her presence, and he gets a sort of self-lacerating pleasure from trying to play the part of her husband. 

He deserves it, he thinks every time she offers him that gap toothed smile of hers, so secret to everyone else. He deserves it, he thinks when she comes to him to quietly explain some delicate situation among the ladies or the servants that he could ease with a few words to the right people. 

It is harder with Lambert. He cannot shake the feeling that he is hurting the boy somehow. His son is growing and it fills him with inexplicable dread that soon he will be learning to hold a sword and ride a pony. He is already learning his letters, although the physicians say he may have a bit of squint and could need lenses to correct it. 

And of course, naturally, Lambert loves Felix. He is utterly without trepidation and he will clamber onto Felix’s lap without warning or fasten himself tightly to Felix’s leg if he stands. It would be comical to see Felix so stoically nonreactive while the other courtiers hold their breath and wait for him to strike, but to Dimitri it is not. It is nothing but another reminder. And he deserves it. 

There is a summer house that has been in the Blaiddyd family holdings for generations, although he has not used it since he was a child and his own father took them there. Dimitri prefers to stay in Fhirdiad, to be available and reachable at any time of year, rather than to retreat to the country. 

But Gisela asks him about it, noting that the house does no good if he allows it to sit empty. He has been pondering over more schools. In a sense, his own education more or less saved his life, and he wants every child in Fódlan to have the same opportunity. 

So that summer he goes to the old house while his wife remains in the palace surrounded by her physicians and uncomfortably pregnant with their second child. He knows he could have ordered some retainer to deal with the house, but he wants to see it himself before it is all undone. The rooms are still filled with memories he would rather not sweep away without ceremony. 

Felix goes with him, of course, because Felix is his right hand, his shield. The business of governing will not wait a whole summer and so he must take a small swarm of clerks and scribes as well.

But aside from that, the short half-day ride into the forests of Blaiddyd territory feels like a different world. The acidic pine soil is poor for farming in the mountains and most people keep herds instead. The summer house itself is at the bottom of a valley hemmed in by craggy hills, blanketed by trees and the occasional field spotted with sheep. 

Despite the wear of years, the house is still sound. The interior is dusty, but it has been prepared for his arrival. They give him the room his father had slept in and it feels maddeningly wrong, although he knows what objections he will raise if he tries to have himself put in the nursery again. 

Felix is assigned the chamber once given to his stepmother. He attempts to protest, claiming that it will be wasted on him and rank need not matter, but no one wants to admit that he has been given the best bed to help with the pains that still plague his right arm. 

Dimitri does not object. The interjoining chambers make it easier for him to creep out of his own room in the middle of the night to join Felix for a few hours until sunrise. The nights are hot despite the cool of the valley and by the time they are finished, the sheets are sticking to his sweating skin. Nevertheless, he pulls Felix close as they lie on top of the blankets. 

“No, it’s too hot,” Felix protests, awkwardly raising himself on his good arm while the other weakly pushes against Dimitri’s chest. Dimitri lets him go and he sits up, reaches for a pitcher of water beside the bed. Dimitri pretends not to notice when his trembling weak hand spills much of it over the edge, or the way that Felix takes a deep breath and goes still for a moment after. 

Instead, Dimitri just lies on his side and tries to memorize every line of Felix’s body. His eyes trace the lines on his legs, the shifting muscles in his abdomen, the line of dark hair down his stomach, the fine points of his face, and the dark curtain of his air. And his arm even. The red blotchy scars and the uneven set of his shoulder. 

Finally Felix settles, uncomfortably arranging himself on his left shoulder and curling his legs up slightly to brush Dimitri’s knees. 

“Are you leaving now?” he asks, glancing to the window which is hastening towards dawn. 

Dimitri says nothing, but he shifts a few inches closer. 

Felix relents and shoves himself forward into an embrace. 

“Fine,” he mumbles into Dimitri’s shoulder. “But it’s like a sauna in here.” 

Dimitri presses his face down into the top of Felix’s head, letting the silky strands of hair tickle his face. He is quiet for a moment, so lost in his thoughts, that he doesn’t realize he has started shaking. 

“What’s wrong?” Felix finally asks when it can no longer be ignored. 

“I just… I want to stay,” Dimitri admits. “I want to pretend that it can always be like this, that everything else is just a dream.”

“Pointless,” Felix scoffs, his gentle touch belying his harsh words. 

“This is destroying me, Felix,” Dimitri whispers. “But it will destroy me to stop, as well.” 

Felix twitches slightly in his arms. 

“If it would be easier, I could leave,” Felix replies after a moment. “You wouldn’t have to choose. I would just be gone. I don’t want to be the one who drowns you, remember?” 

Instinctively, Dimitri’s arms tighten. 

“No,” he manages to say. “No, no, don’t talk like that.” 

“Then stop lying here and feeling miserable,” Felix commands him. He pulls back so that he can look at his face, meeting Dimitri’s eye with piercing intensity. “Stop craving your own pain, Dimitri. Let it be what it is. It isn’t perfect, I know, but you’re not… you’re doing the best that you can. Let this make you happy or I swear, I swear I will leave.” 

Dimitri can make no articulate sound, but he nods his understanding. Then he kisses Felix again, trying to pretend that light isn’t beginning to stream through the window. It does make him happy. Despite everything, it makes him so happy. 

They spend a few weeks at the summer home while Dimitri sorts through the odd old things his parents kept there. He sends most of it to be sold, allows the more pragmatic items to remain as the place is converted into a school. He tours the grounds with Felix. 

They might be observed, but it cannot hurt to be seen sitting by the river together in quiet conversation, or watching the moonrise in the pastures. No one can complain if the king and his advisor are spotted walking in the hills and enjoying a few moments of sunshine when they really ought to be devising a letter to Margrave Gautier about his concerns regarding the border with Sreng. 

When autumn comes, Dimitri has a daughter. Gisela asks almost repentantly if they can name her Freya, which Dimitri recalls only then as the name of Gisela’s sister, many years buried. He happily agrees, relieved he does not have to debate naming the child for his stepmother. They give her the second name Estrild, a name with no ghosts attached to it. 

His old friends all assemble for the baby’s blessing. As wonderful as it is to see Annette back from Garreg Mach, her wan, somnolent husband in tow, and to have Mercedes and Sylvain back from Gautier territory, Dimitri feels that a distance has crept into their friendship for the first time. 

He is hiding from them again. It is just like when they were students together, when he had to hold himself back so that they wouldn’t be repelled by the jagged fragments of his mind. 

He smiles, enjoying how Annette coos over the baby while Mercedes cautions Emile against overwhelming Lambert as they are joyously reunited. He watches Sylvain laughing as Emile releases Lambert from a crushing embrace and then his eyes are involuntarily drawn to Felix who is talking grimly to Ingrid and Ashe about matters of security for the Archbishop’s arrival. 

Gisela blushes as she always does with his friends. They overwhelm her slightly with their attention and their lack of decorum. She is not used to hearing so many people address Dimitri by name, he thinks, or treat him as roughly as Sylvain does when he clasps Dimitri easily by the shoulder or when Ingrid swats at him for reassuring her that there will be a generous feast after the ceremony. 

Dedue arrives back from Duscur the evening before the blessing and his silent, solid presence is a relief. He looks well. His face is tanned from the Duscur sun and laugh lines are beginning to appear around his eyes. 

“How is the situation with the Kleiman estates?” Dimitri asks as they share a drink in his quarters. 

“We are making progress,” Dedue reassures him. “The legal matters are slow, and much of it was never written down, but we are gradually restoring what was taken to the ancestral families.” 

“Do you like it there?” Dimitri asks and then regrets it. It sounds like an accusation. Of course Dedue prefers his homeland to the hostile, suffocating palace of Fhirdiad. 

“I do,” Dedue says. “But I miss your company… Dimitri.” 

It has been many years, but his voice always catches on the name regardless. It is so good to hear. Despite everything, it is good to hear that Dedue misses him. 

“I miss you as well. Often terribly,” Dimitri says. “Not that I would pry you away from your work of course. And I have plenty of friends here in Fhirdiad.” 

“I understand,” Dedue says. He clears his throat. “You know I wish our circumstances allowed me to serve by your side. But I… am not so alone either, now.” 

It takes Dimitri a moment to understand what Dedue is telling him, in his way. 

“Ah, I see,” he smiles. “May I offer my congratulations?” 

“We are not wed yet,” Dedue admits, his usually still face strangely flushed. 

“When you are,” Dimirti says, “I hope that you will allow me to be there. I mean, if that is appropriate. I am unsure of how Duscur wedding rites are performed.” 

“You will be there,” Dedue nods. “All of our friends will be there, I hope.” 

Hesitantly, Dimitri puts a hand on his shoulder. It is easy to be quiet around Dedue. While with Felix he often feels that he is exploding with unsaid words, Dedue is still and patient. If Dimitri wants to say something, he knows he will get it out eventually. 

Dimitri almost tells him then. He almost opens his mouth and says _I’m in love with Felix_ . He almost says _it is killing me slowly, but I cannot stop_ . He almost says _when people thank me it feels like the lash of the whip because I am the falsest hypocrite in the world and I am weak and I am in love with Felix._

But the urge to speak slowly fades. They sit in the comfortable silence of their slowly nurtured friendship. 

Dimitri’s stomach aches. 

\---

As he crests the hill into his late thirties, Dimitri reflects on how much he has watched his friends change. Sylvain is most dramatic, tamed from wild and unrepentantly changeable, into one of the tenderest and most constant men Dimitri has ever met. Mercedes has relaxed, growing stronger and more certain of herself as she accepts that her husband, son, and house are all things that she may keep this time. 

More subtly, Dimitri can tell each time Annette visits that she has changed. Nothing can stop her boundless enthusiasm, but she takes naps now. With Ingrid and Ashe, they have been at his side for so long that he has almost forgotten how they have blossomed into the people they once only aspired to be. Dimitri suspects there is some arrangement between them, not so much a secret as a private bond. 

When they visit Duscur for Dedue’s wedding, it is obvious that he has changed. 

Dimitri sees him laugh for the first time in nearly thirty years and it shocks him into laughing as well. Duscur is beautiful in the summer, a tapestry of flowers now growing from what was once burned fields. This is a place that has been nurtured and has grown in accordance with the effort of Dedue’s love. 

This is a place completely unlike his home. 

As they assemble in the Duscur sunlight, Dimitri shifts uncomfortably under the attention. Although the long years of kingship have given him some assurance of his own capability, he feels out of place here, unwanted, an unpleasant intrusion. 

On the road, he could not help himself but to be anxious. He rode the whole way because he cannot be in a carriage on these paths. Gisela accompanied him with their children and at least Ashe and Ingrid seemed to understand why he needed them to watch from the skies. 

The Kingdom of Fódlan has grown less troubled in these past few years. Whatever Byleth has been doing in her secretive way has pacified some of the trouble. 

And on the subject of right hands, there is less hatred directed towards his advisor since the attempt on his life left him the subject of sympathy rather than hatred. 

Felix is there as well, standing at his other side. He is in a bad temper on account of having to ride in the carriage the whole way. Dimitri overheard a fierce fight over whether he was suitable for the kingsguard, which Felix lost. He has been training his left arm constantly over the past year. While he is nothing like he was, Dimitri suspects he could best most men with a blade now. His handwriting, however, is abominable. 

And Dimitri loves him. He loves Felix’s presence at his side, loves the firm resolution of his quest for mastery, loves the sharp and sometimes explosive way that he cares so deeply, loves the defiant independence of his mind. He is learning slowly to be happy with it. 

He wonders if it might be enough. He has not been a perfect husband, or a perfect father, or a perfect king, but he has not been a monster either. Felix reminds him of that as often as he can when they are together. He is not a monster for his love. His feelings are not poison or madness or yet more broken refuse of his childhood. 

And so as Dedue laughs with his bride, Dimitri catches Gisela’s eye and smiles. She smiles back with the corner of her mouth and he hesitantly takes her hand. Her head tilts in momentary uncertainty, and then she laces their fingers together. 

That evening before they go to bed, Dimitri paces the room and resists the urge to go to check on the children for the fifth time. There is no palace is Duscur to host them and, as foreign visitors, they have no right to claim some larger house, so Dimitri and Gisela have but one bed to share. 

“Perhaps they could be moved in here,” he wonders aloud again. “It might be crowded, but--” 

“My lord, they are safe,” Gisela reminds him. “This land is safe for you now. They have faced more danger on the streets of Fhirdiad, I do not doubt.” 

Dimitri rubs his temples. 

“I know, I know,” he repeats. “You must think me small-minded to worry so much here.” 

“Your Majesty,” Gisela says patiently, “I know that reason often has no bearing upon the passions of the heart. Will you lie down?” 

Dimitri forces himself to stop pacing. Slowly, he lowers himself onto the bed, lying on his back and ready to spring up at a moment’s notice. 

“My lord,” Gisela says after a few moments, her tone faintly maternal. “Will you close your eyes?” 

“I am sorry,” Dimitri apologizes, sitting up again. “I am not sure I can sleep tonight. If I am bothering you, I can wait in the hall.” 

“You do not bother me,” Gisela says. “Your presence is never unpleasant to me.” 

Dimitri tries not to wince. 

“My lady,” he begins haltingly. “Gisela. Are you… happy with me?” 

She gives him an odd, unreadable look. 

“Your Majesty, you have given me no cause for--” 

“Please call me Dimitri,” he asks, suddenly unable to tolerate the formal way she treats him. 

“Dimitri,” she concedes, “I am happy.” 

“I know I have not been… as I should be to you,” Dimitri adds. 

“You have given me freedom, support, two wonderful children, and a feeling of purpose I never knew that I had,” Gisela says. Her hair is unbound around her shoulders and it makes her look younger. He recalls that she is a few years older, that forty years is closer for her now. 

“I worry about you,” Dimitri admits. “I worry that you are not happy in Fhirdiad or with me or that you might have had a better life without this.” 

Gisela folds his hand between hers. Her fingers are warm and soft. 

“I admit that I have not always been content,” she says and then laughs. “But who is? Who could be always content? But what you have given me is the sovereignty to choose. You allow me to cut a path to the future I wish for and to contribute in my small way to my own dreams.” 

“And that is enough?” Dimitri asks quietly. 

“Yes,” she replies. “Yes. I am happy, Dimitri. I know I am not greatly passionate in my manner, but I am quite happy.” 

Dimitri sighs and relaxes slightly. 

“If you are… not…?” Gisela begins to say. Dimitri shakes his head before she can finish. 

“No, no,” he rushes to say. “You have been a perfect queen, a perfect wife. You have given me everything I could want and more.” 

“But, my lord,” she says and then catches herself. “Dimitri, if you are not happy, I would… I would wish you so. Whatever I might do.” 

“I am tired,” Dimitri says, a lie so blatant that even Gisela raises an eyebrow. “Shall I blow out the candle?” 

“Yes,” Gisela agrees. 

But as they lie there in the dark, Dimitri just as awake and full of tension as he was moments before, Gisela stokes his hand with hers. If she knew what he had done, how he had shamed her and betrayed her again and again with those hands, in strangers' beds like this one, she would despise him. 

He wonders if Felix is up standing guard or if someone has battled him into his own bed. He wonders if Felix is happy. 

It is not long after they return from Duscur that Lambert falls ill. 

He is seven years old and filled with energy, until suddenly one day he is not. His forehead feels hot when he curls into Dimitri’s arms for comfort. 

Because Freya is still just a baby, the nurse must take her for a few weeks so she does not catch the infection. Dimitri and Gisela sit up with Lambert every hour of the day and night. His fever grows and with it a deep cough in his chest. 

Sometimes at night, he wakes up coughing so hard, Dimitri can hear a terrible sucking noise in his chest. He cries once he has finished because his chest hurts and he feels cold and he is frightened. Dimitri does not know how to reassure him because he is every bit as terrified. 

Gisela forces Dimitri to rest for a few hours each night while she stays with Lambert instead. In terms of ruling the kingdom, Dimitri might as well have left it leaderless that week. Felix will handle it, he knows. Felix can handle anything. 

Until one night, Lambert stops breathing for a moment. 

His skin is flushed, an angry rash spreading across his chest. He begins to seize, his small limbs spasming and shaking in his bed. Dimitri calls out for a doctor, tries to hold him still. Despite his small size, the Crest of Blaiddyd makes him crack the wooden bedframe with his childish grip. 

The physician arrives and they usher Dimitri back while his son thrashes and groans. Dimitri cannot stand and watch. He tries to push forward. He needs to be with his son. His son who is… 

Someone drags him into the hallway. He barely remembers where he is anymore. 

In the dark hall, he can still hear the sound of his son gasping for breath, of physicians talking in hushed, urgent voices. 

“Find the queen,” someone says. 

Dimitri presses his hands to his ears, like he does with the whispers of the dead grow loud. His son is dying, he thinks. His son is dying and soon he will join those voices. 

“Dimitri,” a firm voice says. “Dimitri, you need to calm down. I can’t hold you like this for long.” 

Dimitri suddenly becomes aware that he is pressed against the stone wall and that Felix is in front of him, pinning him with his left arm although he is fighting against it. Felix is the one who has dragged him out of that room so that the doctors might work. 

“Oh,” Dimitri manages to say and he realizes where he is. The sounds in the chamber behind him have quieted. Felix is holding him firmly in place, his clothing slightly askew where Dimitri must have been struggling. His expression is that forced stillness Dimitri has seen so many times. Underneath that, his eyes are panicked. 

Dimitri wants to apologize, but what comes out of his mouth is a sob. He cannot help it. His knees give out and he slides down the wall, heaving cries tearing out of him. He feels burning tears sliding down from his eye and his hands shake as he folds them around himself. He cannot stop himself and his sobbing is terrible, more the sounds of a wounded animal than a man. 

Felix kneels down beside him, trying to prop him up with his stronger left arm while his right arm gently wraps around his shoulders, his mangled swordhand gripping the back of Dimitri’s head as best as he can. Dimitri moans into his shoulder. His chest heaves with more panicked desperate cries. 

“He’s dying,” Dimitri manages to choke out after a few moments. “Felix, he’s dying.” 

“Not yet,” Felix murmurs. “He’s still fighting. He has your Crest, so he’s stronger than you know.” 

“If he dies, I can’t--” Dimitri breaks off. More sobs shake his body. 

“Shh,” Felix says, gentler than Dimitri has ever heard him. “I’m here.” 

His voice breaks a bit on the last word as well. 

Gisela finds them like that a few minutes later when she comes rushing, pale and sick with lack of sleep. Felix looks up at her, unable to explain. 

“I have him,” he finally says. “You should see to your son.” 

Dimitri cannot see well enough to catch her expression as she nods and goes into Lambert’s room. He just sits there for another ten minutes until Felix drags him to his feet and forces him into bed. Felix does not leave his chambers until morning. 

When dawn comes, Lambert is still alive. Dimitri is allowed to see him although the healers are clearly cautious about letting him in. The boy is still too warm and his eyes are glassy. Dimitri presses a kiss to his sweating forehead. He sees that one of the boy’s arms is clutching the little doll of a hound Dimitri once brought him as a gift. 

He and Gisela do not speak of anything but Lambert’s condition for days. No one speaks of the fact that Duke Fraldarius now stays in the king’s chambers each night. Felix does nothing but lie beside him until he falls asleep. Dimitri suspects he has also set Ingrid to watch him during the day because she has begun to follow him as he drags himself between Lambert’s room and his study. 

After two weeks, the fever finally breaks. Lambert is so weak. He can barely move without help. Many of his clothes and toys have to be taken from him and burned to prevent future infection and he weeps when they take them away. Dimitri cannot help but shed a few more tears as well. 

“You must watch him closely,” one of the healers warns. “A long fever like this can weaken the heart. Other parts of the body, as well.” 

Gisela nods wordlessly. Lambert is lying in her arms and she is stroking his pale hair back from his forehead. 

It takes a few days before they realize. 

“Why is it so dark?” he keeps asking. 

Gisela stands and opens the curtains, hoping that the light will comfort him. 

Lambert stares at her, squinting as though she is very far away. His dark brown eyes are glassy. He can barely see her. 

How does one explain to a seven year old boy that he is nearly blind now? How does one explain that the foggy impressions of color are all he will likely ever see again? 

When he explains it to Felix that night, in between the hysterical shuddering sobs that he just cannot seem to stop anymore, Felix merely taps the pit of scars that used to be his own eye. They are lying in his mess of a bed again, fully clothed but with Dimitri’s head cradled against Felix’s chest. 

“He’ll learn to live without it,” Felix says. “As we both have.” 

Dimitri raises his head, tries to collect himself and wipe his face. 

“He’s so young,” Dimitri says with a trembling voice. 

“That will make it easier,” Felix replies. 

Slowly, he raises his right arm. Despite his shirt, Dimitri can see that it is substantially smaller than the left now. The muscles have withered without use. Felix flexes his fingers and Dimitri can see how it takes all of his effort just to form a loose fist. “He will get used to it.” 

Dimitri touches Felix’s trembling hand and Felix allows him to, as he so seldom has before. 

“How can I protect him?” Dimitri asks, slowly touching the knot of scars across the inside of Felix’s forearm. 

“Hire different tutors,” Felix says, ever pragmatic and to the point. “Let him train differently. Let him learn differently. Let him excel in other ways.”

“He loved riding,” Dimitri says, “he loved exploring.”

“He has other strengths,” Felix reminds him. He has said that before. 

“Your left hand,” Dimitri remarks, “is very strong now.” 

“When it first happened, I wished that it had just killed me,” Felix says. Dimitri looks up sharply at that. Felix meets his gaze without hesitation. His eyes are the color of dark honey and his hair is a mess of loose strands that tumble over his forehead. “But now, I’m glad to be here.” 

“What changed?” Dimitri asks. “Was it the training, or just… time?” 

“You,” Felix says and then his face flushes. He looks almost angry about it. “You, fool, it was you. And this.” 

He slowly kisses Dimitri, softly on account of the tears still drying on his face. 

“Obviously, I’d prefer to have my arm whole again, but if this was the exchange…” Felix says and then sighs, like he’s too embarrassed to say it aloud. “I’d make the trade again.” 

“Nothing is ever so easy,” Dimitri closes his eyes. “No matter what I do, people get hurt.” 

“Life gets people hurt,” Felix insists. “Think of the war. Think of Duscur. Think of illness and accident and hardship. You can’t just fix that. You need to find ways to live regardless.”

Dimitri nods and then apologetically begins searching for a clean handkerchief. He keeps leaving damp patches on Felix’s shirts with all the crying he’s done in the past week. 

Before he can find one, Felix has pressed lips to his cheek. When he is gentle like this, it takes Dimitri’s breath away. It is like being softly nuzzled by a wolf or brushing lips with a storm. 

“You know I can’t keep coming to you like this,” Felix says when Dimitri has finally pulled away and managed to dry his face. “The court has been talking.” 

“I’ll be alright,” Dimitri replies. “Tell them… tell them what you will.” 

Felix nods wearily. 

Once Lambert has been well for a few weeks, visitors begin to arrive to call upon him. He was inconsolable for the first week, stumbling around his room and frequently crying with frustration as he could not find what he wanted. Dimitri and Gisela split their time with him or with Freya. 

Gisela is better at calming Lambert, but Dimitri has more experience with sudden alterations to his vision. He grimly remembers the year he lost his eye and the wild, animal terror he’d felt the first time he’d needed to fight and found that all of his blows were misaimed. 

But once he can at least stand on his own, they allow him a few visitors. Sylvain and Mercedes arrive as soon as they can and Emile is very timid where usually he is brash, approaching Lambert’s bedside with hesitant steps. Ingrid carries him out to the stables so that he can visit his pony and his beloved barn cats. Ashe reads to him each evening before bed and Dimitri can tell he is embellishing the stories to include several bravely recovering invalids. Dedue even returns briefly from Duscur, so deeply distressed and apologetic that Dimitri almost cannot bear to speak to him. 

When Annette comes from Garreg Mach, she is laden with strengthening tonics from Linhardt and deeply excited about a military code designed for passing secret notes by night through carved sticks. Lambert is quickly beset with supporters and he regains strength with the remarkable stamina of a child, and particularly a child with the Blaiddyd Crest. Emile leads him around the palace once he can stand, holding his hand so that he does not stumble. 

And Felix does occasionally visit him. Sometimes Dimitri watches them together when Lambert is out in the garden, shuffling around slowly and no longer crying out with joy when he finds a new plant or insect. He does not know what they are talking about, but once, Dimitri catches Felix kneeling down, removing his glove, and allowing Lambert to trace the scars on his hand. 

About two months after his recovery, Dimitri and Gisela finally find themselves sitting out on the terrace alone. Lambert is in his room, carefully watched by Mercedes and Annette who are attempting to reinvent a game of cards so that he can play by blurry colors alone. 

There is a pot of tea sitting between them as they watch the sun setting. Gisela sips from her cup every now and then. Dimitri feels too exhausted to so much as raise the china to his lips. In his current state, he will probably shatter the handle with his carelessness. 

“So many children, only a few years older than him, were injured in the war,” Gisela finally says by way of conversation. Dimitri nods and rubs at his good eye. 

“I have met many of them,” he replies listlessly. 

He wishes he could have shown Edelgard the endless stream of children with burns, with missing limbs, with bruises on their heads that left them drooling and speechless, with no scars at all but with enough ghosts to rival his own. Perhaps then she would have reconsidered his treaty. 

“I believe they will still accept him as their king,” Gisela says. “People are growing more understanding of those who are different.” 

“I almost wish they wouldn’t,” Dimitri laughs bitterly. “I would not wish this on anyone.” 

“Dimitri,” Gisela says and her tone is abruptly stern. “I need you to be honest with me. If nothing else, I have done enough to deserve the truth.”

He looks up from his gloomy reverie, abruptly surging with tension. It reminds him of the sudden snap from sleepless exhaustion into battle rage. 

“I do not know what you mean,” Dimitri says stiffly. “Speak more plainly.” 

“I will not veil my words then,” Gisela says. Her tone is clipped. “These last weeks have taught me much about your character, perhaps more than our years of marriage ever had before. I would like you to tell me clearly, what are your feelings towards me.” 

“You are my wife,” Dimitri says. His breathing seems to be accelerating despite himself. “I-- I-- I wish only for your happiness.” 

“But how do you feel about me?” Gisela presses him. Why does she remain so inscrutable to him? After these many years, he ought to have learned to read the look in her eyes. 

“You are a good woman,” Dimitri tries again, his voice weakening. “You are an exemplary mother and a fine queen. You bring me honor and your wise advice has served the kingdom immeasurably.” 

“Dimitri, please,” Gisela’s cup clatters against her saucer. “You must give me more than that. I cannot live this way so… uncertain.” 

“I cannot… Gisela, I cannot give you an answer that you want,” Dimitri says hopelessly. “I can tell you truly that you are dear to me, that I admire you, that I rely on you, and that I cannot imagine the difficulty of what I put you through. But I cannot say what I should.” 

Strangely, Gisela relaxes. Her shoulders slump and she smiles at him. 

“You have already said what you should,” she says. Then she pauses. For the first time in their marriage, she looks slightly reckless. “It might not be my place, but… His Grace, Duke Fraldarius, is very dear to you as well.” 

Dimitri feels himself crumbling. She knows then. 

He leans forward and rests his elbows on his knees, letting his hair conceal his face so that she might not see the horrible shame etched in every line. 

“Dear one,” Gisela’s voice is very soft, although she has every right to scream at him now. “Please look up.” 

Dimitri mutely shakes his head. He cannot face her like this. 

“Oh Dimitri, it is alright,” she urges him. “I understand. Goddess knows, I have never seen any great sign of passion in you for me, although you have never failed to compliment my beauty. A lesser man might have sent me away or treated me with resentment.” 

“I have…” Dimitri tries to say, but his voice is a strangled mess. “I have treated you poorly.” 

He feels her hand rest on his shoulder. Her comforting touch is like a knife plunging into his back again and again. 

“May I tell you something?” Gisela asks after a few seconds. Dimitri nods into his hands. 

“I’d like to tell you about my sister. About Freya. She was my closest friend when we were children, although six years my senior. When she began to receive marriage proposals, my father settled on several good matches, but she refused them all. At first we thought she was simply being difficult. Arrogant, even. My parents were furious. But Freya was adamant. Gossip began that she must love a commoner, a stableboy possibly, and she was saving herself for him once he won his fortune as a knight.” 

“Was she?” Dimitri asks when Gisela pauses for a moment.

“In a sense. She was in love with the kitchen maid,” Gisela says. Dimitri raises his head at that, feeling vaguely like a thunderclap has gone off right beside him. Gisela’s voice is level, utterly without disgust. “My father forced a marriage when he found out. People like my sister are not… unheard of, but they produce no heirs. He insisted that she conceal her infatuation until she was wed and had sealed her position with a child. After all, marriage is a contract, not an affair of the heart. She died in her first childbed.” 

When Gisela finishes speaking, she lets out a shaky breath. Dimitri realizes something about her then. 

That unreadable expression, that guarded polite demeanor, has always been the same emotion. She has been deeply, furiously angry for most of the years that he has known her.

That quiet look in her eyes is rage. 

“I’m so sorry,” Dimitri says after a few moments. “Gisela, I am so sorry.” 

“We must ensure it does not happen again,” Gisela says. Her voice is low and tight in her throat. “To anyone in Fódlan, we must put a stop to it. People must accept those who are different.” 

“I will do whatever I can,” Dimitri pledges. “Whatever you tell me to do.”

Gisela looks at him and there are tears in her eyes. She reaches out and cups his chin. 

“That is why I do love you, Dimitri. In my way,” she says. “And why I must ask you to attend better to Duke Fraldarius. I should like to see you and he smile more often. If you wish me to remain your wife and queen, nothing would be a greater honor, but I will not allow you to torture yourself any longer.” 

Dimitri takes her hand and kisses her fingers. 

“I am so lucky,” Dimitri gasps out as his body shivers with relief. “I have always been blessed with the strength of others.” 

\---

Just after Dimitri turns forty, he and Felix go to Garreg Mach to celebrate the establishment day. Gisela and the children join them. Freya is a little terror and must be constantly minded or she will get herself into a mess. Lambert complains daily that she has bitten him or torn his sleeve. 

Claude has also made the journey back and has brought a spectacle of Almyran delicacies and some sort of rockets he intends to shoot into the sky. Lambert and Freya are both enchanted by a tiny miniature wyvern he has brought as a gift and Dimitri casts Gisela a mournful look as they realize that they will have to transport the nippy little lizard all the way back to Fhirdiad. And worst of all, Claude has brought his half-wild daughter who, at thirteen, has the makings of a truly troublesome leader. 

“I suppose I’ll be sending her here soon enough,” Claude laughs as they watch their children investigating the snow on the Officers Academy quad. “Perhaps she’ll steal the tender heart of your boy when he’s ready to attend.” 

“No,” Dimitri immediately snaps. “Absolutely not.” 

“If Lambert wants to marry an Almyran princess, he may,” Gisela reminds him with faint humor. “Although she will have to compete with his menagerie for attention.” 

The tiny wyvern screeches in Lambert’s arms and he peers closely down at it, his lenses reflecting his eyes as enormous while his hands cautiously find the animal’s chin and begin to scratch it. 

“Are you certain that creature is safe?” Felix asks. He has been irritable with Claude all day. Dimitri is uncertain if it is the Almyran king’s manners or if Felix is merely embarrassed by running into old classmates. 

“She’s fine,” Claude scoffs. “Your kid has quick fingers, he’ll be alright.” 

“I’m taking it away,” Felix immediately announces. He stalks off over to the snowy lawn to try to convince Lambert to give up his pet. Freya hits him with a snowball to the face and he stumbles. Gisela tuts and then hurries forward to try to restrain the girl who is now pelting Felix’s fallen form with showers of ice. 

“Dimitri, Claude,” Byleth’s cool tone comes from behind them. The Archbishop looks the same as ever. 

Dimitri has been meaning to ask about that. He is uncertain if the years are touching her in the same way that they are him. But perhaps it is none of his business. 

“Hey Teach,” Claude says easily. “How’s the Church of Seiros doing these days?” 

“I’m sure you’re aware,” Byleth says mildly. “I find enough of your informants in my congregation each week.” 

Claude does not have the decency to even blush at that. 

“I am glad you have both made the journey here,” Byleth continues. “Despite the long years, I find that my time as your teacher is still vivid in my mind.” 

“Professor,” Dimitri says, forgetting as usual to alter her title. “I only wish I had come more often. I know it can be… lonely here at times.”

Byleth gives him an odd evaluating look. 

“Power does have an isolating effect,” she finally agrees. Even Claude’s usual bravado wilts a bit under her stare. 

“If you would ever appreciate a… friend,” Dimitri offers awkwardly. “I have some experience.” 

“Offering to guide the archbishop, huh?” Claude laughs. “I think this Savior King business has finally gone to your head.” 

“You know I just--” Dimirti stutters then looks to Byleth for aid. “I meant no offense.” 

“I believe I should have a few more friends,” Byleth nods. She has never laughed at him, even in his most laughable moments. “Join me for tea sometime, perhaps? I must get back into the habit.” 

“And, um,” Dimitri offers before he must turn away to see why his family is screaming in what he hopes is delight. “Give my regards to the Goddess. Tell her to love you well.” 

Byleth looks startled for perhaps the only time in her life. 

That evening, Claude’s rockets go off over the monastery. They watch them from the Goddess Tower. 

Freya shrieks at the sound while Lambert bounces on his toes and announces the colors with pride. Gisela takes his left hand while Felix stands at his right, a rigid shadow. 

Dimitri pulls him close, slides his arm around Felix’s waist and rests his chin on the top of Felix’s head. Felix starts at the touch, but slowly allows it. He is still jumpy about their new arrangement. 

Gisela lets go of his fingers and then goes to lift Freya into her arms to comfort her about the noise. Dimitri lets Felix settle his head back. 

“You’re warm,” Felix finally relents. 

“I’m cold too,” Lambert chimes in. Felix shakes his head. 

“You’re too large for me to hold now,” he says, waving his right hand as best as he can. Lambert frowns. 

“I know,” he says, wanting to appear mature. “But… can you try?” 

Dimitri helps Felix hoist him up, needing only one hand to support most of the boy’s weight. 

Another rocket goes off. 

“Blue!” Lambert announces. 

Nothing has worked out perfectly, Dimitri thinks. They do not live in an ideal world where justice is always done and mistakes are never made and wounds are always healed. 

But, he decides, moments like this come pretty close. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> in case anyone is curious, Gisela is my corruption of Griselda the notoriously patient wife of the Decameron and Sigvyn is a version of Sigyn the notable tolerant wife of Loki.


End file.
